Schools
09/10/10 5:44pm

The Academy of St. Agnes in the Fields

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The 18.7-acre vacant former site of the Gillman auto dealership on Bellaire Blvd. at Fondren will soon become an extension campus of a Catholic girls’ high school down the road. The main campus of St. Agnes Academy will remain at 9000 Bellaire Blvd., next to Strake Jesuit between Gessner and Ranchester, which the school calls “landlocked.” This new site a little more than a mile to the east — purchased just Wednesday — will likely become the new home of the school’s athletic facilities, to allow for expansion on the main campus. If that happens, the Catholic school’s sports teams will play on fields across Bellaire Blvd. from Plazamericas — formerly known as the Sharpstown Mall. St. Agnes Academy moved to its current site in 1963, after almost 60 years in Midtown.

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Buying and Selling
09/10/10 4:04pm

Comment of the Day: Minimum Lot Size Ordinance Exit Strategy

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: MINIMUM LOT SIZE ORDINANCE EXIT STRATEGY “. . . The future of the minimum ordinances will depend on the individual blocks when the ordinances themselves expire. A few of my neighbors are planning for their retirement as soon as their ordinances expire with several options: duplexing their house with a garage apartment for rental income or selling out to condo builders as a last laugh for the looming McMansions next to them. If I don’t think my block will re-up our ordinances, I’ll be sure to sell out before the vultures start circling.” [Studes Second, commenting on Where Houston’s Lot-Size Restrictions Went, Year by Year]

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Eminent Domain
09/10/10 1:12pm

92 Eminent Domain Cases on 3 Lines: Metro’s Light Rail Land Acquisition Scorecard

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92 EMINENT DOMAIN CASES ON 3 LINES: METRO’S LIGHT RAIL LAND ACQUISITION SCORECARD Nick Boulos’s former Shell station on the corner of MLK and Old Spanish Trail “is among 133 pieces of property [Metro] has acquired along the Southeast Corridor, including 27 in which Metro invoked eminent domain. Of those, 21 (including Boulos’) were settled by negotiation. Another 7 remain to be mediated or possibly settled in court. In the East End, METRO has obtained 135 parcels, filed 47 eminent domain cases, and settled 33 by negotiation, leaving 14 for mediation or the courtroom. On the Northside, METRO has acquired 113 total pieces of property, filed 18 eminent domain cases, and settled 16 by negotiation, leaving 2 for mediation or the courtroom.” [Fox 26] Rendering of Southeast Line on MLK between Griggs Rd. and OST: Metro

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Leasing
09/10/10 11:00am

Main St. Feng Shui Rock Gives Up the Fight; Wichita St. Sha Chi Running Wild Again

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The big rock hanging out on the Main St. sidewalk in front of the former Weldon Cafeteria building next to the Lawndale Art Center has vanished! The Houston office of architecture firm BNIM had placed the thing there this summer — in consultation with a Feng Shui master — to combat the negative energy lumbering down Wichita St. and pointed straight at the company’s first-floor studio space. Its lease up at the end of August, BNIM jumped ship to new offices in that sorta leafy mid-seventies office park at 4200 Westheimer between Highland Village and BoConcept — all under cover of the protective services provided by that real-as-life crag the company got from San Jacinto Stone:

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Comments
09/09/10 5:47pm

Comment of the Day: Are You All Short-Timers Here?

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: ARE YOU ALL SHORT-TIMERS HERE? “I have often wondered… Why is there such a collective push towards “improving property value”? I think it’s a terrible thing! My preference is for the value of my property to stabilize. I don’t want it to fall, because it would make the neighborhood as a whole lose value and therefore invite blight; but I don’t want it to rise either, because I will simply have to pay more taxes on it. The only reason for anyone to hope for their property value to rise is because they would prefer to sell it. In my opinion, that’s not a sustainable model, because the only ones that benefit from it are the ones that do not want to keep the house long-term. That’s how you end up with sub-par quality ‘houses’ built by seedy developers. Am I off base?” [Alex, commenting on Where Houston’s Lot-Size Restrictions Went, Year by Year]

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Cancellations and Delays
09/09/10 5:32pm

Houston’s Next Light Rail Lines Delayed Until 2014

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Those trains from Spain that gave the feds cause to complain yesterday are gonna delay the completion of all three light-rail lines now under construction, Metro announced today. The transit agency backed off its earlier ETA for the North, Southeast, and East End lines, saying that meeting the previously announced October 2013 completion date is no longer feasible. The problem: getting at $900 million in grant money from the Federal Transit Administration, which Metro had been expecting to arrive soon. The FTA is now requiring a promise from the transit agency to rebid the railcar contract before it’ll continue considering the application for the bulk of those funds. Sez Metro: “A delay of up to one year is anticipated.”

Drawing of future Southeast Corridor light rail line on MLK near Madalyn Ln.: Metro

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Downtown
09/09/10 11:57am

Spindletop Restaurant Ready for Another Spin

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SPINDLETOP RESTAURANT READY FOR ANOTHER SPIN After a $1.4 million renovation, the Spindletop Restaurant at the top of the Hyatt Regency Hotel Downtown will  reopen soon, for the first time since Hurricane Ike knocked the rotating 34th-floor attraction off its tracks. Everything is set in motion for an October 6th opening, though earlier announcements had promised something in September. The glass-walled restaurant at Smith and Dallas will return to its regular 45-minute circuit under the steady guidance of longtime executive chef Jean Moysan. Revamped: both the interior and the menu, which will feature seafood, tableside-tossed salads, and desserts from a Spindletop pastry shop. [PRWeb; previously on Swamplot]

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Development Restrictions
09/09/10 8:25am

Where Houston’s Lot-Size Restrictions Went, Year by Year

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Using data from Houston’s planning department, University of Maryland grad student Chris Dorney has put together a series of diagrams showing which blockfaces in the Inner Loop have restricted lot sizes — and when they’ve done it. His maps start in 2002, when the predecessor to the city’s current Minimum Lot Size ordinance first went into effect. The ordinance allows residents of a single side of a single block to restrict homeowners in that block from subdividing lots below a certain size; its cousin, the Minimum Building Line ordinance, does the same for front setbacks. Dorney explains:

Each [diagram] shows the Inner Loop and indicates blockfaces with special minimum lot size restrictions already in place (red dots) and new for the given year (blue dots) (i.e. blue dots turn red the following year). There are clear spatial patterns to the adoption of these ordinances which it would be interesting to know more about. Perhaps most interesting to people from zoned cities is why every block has not decided to enact such restrictions…a zoning ordinance would likely cover every block uniformly.

And here they are:

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Houston Data
09/09/10 8:08am

Why Houston Thinks It’s a Tourist Town

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WHY HOUSTON THINKS IT’S A TOURIST TOWN The single biggest group that visits Houston is . . . wait for it . . . Houstonians, according to a recent survey commissioned by the Greater Houston Convention & Visitors Bureau. That’s probably because the survey counted local residents as tourists if they spent the night in a hotel or made a special trip of 50 miles or more. 58 percent of Houston visitors last year were from Texas; the next biggest source of visitors — accounting for 8 percent — was Louisiana: “And the No. 1 reason travelers report they come to Houston? Last year, 51 percent reported they come to visit family and friends; that is a higher proportion than the other cities in the survey.” [Houston Chronicle]

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Buying and Selling
09/08/10 4:17pm

Comment of the Day: Full Disclosure

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COMMENT OF THE DAY: FULL DISCLOSURE “. . . maybe real estate [listings] should include all the important viruses previous owners might have had, like herpes, or HPV, or hepatitis, or epstein-barr, or mononucleosis. Not to mention bacteria! Or addiction! Or the viewing of pornography! Gosh, it might be hard for [some] to ever live in a previously owned building.” [Karen, commenting on Nicer Than a Log Cabin: John Staub River Oaks Deb, at $9.5 Million]

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Afton Oaks
09/08/10 4:04pm

Switching Out the Ranch Dressing: Afton Oaks’ New Look

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This reinvented Ranch on Staunton St. in Afton Oaks has had a little work done since the last time it was on the market — way back in April of last year, at around $400K cheaper than its current price tag. That American colonial look is gone, wrapped by layers of stucco and Hardie panels and a new standing-seam metal roof. Other nips and tucks for the 60-year-old include a ceiling lift, a new fixed-in-place fenestration program, and a few hundred sq. ft. of additions.

A couple before-and-after comparisons for the 3-bedroom, 2,688-sq.-ft. redo:

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Financing
09/08/10 12:14pm

Feds To Metro: Back off the Spanish Trains and We’ll Fund Your North and Southeast Lines

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FEDS TO METRO: BACK OFF THE SPANISH TRAINS AND WE’LL FUND YOUR NORTH AND SOUTHEAST LINES Calling the results of its 4-month-long investigation “both alarming and disturbing,” the Federal Transit Administration scolded Houston’s transit agency for systematically trying to bypass federal rules in the signing of 2 light-rail-vehicle contracts with a Spanish manufacturer. But the violations won’t derail funding for the light rail lines — as long as Metro’s new management team promises to rebid the contract and follow federal “Buy America” rules. A letter from FTA administrator Peter Rogoff said Houston commuters shouldn’t be punished for Metro’s violations: “The Administration still believes that the North and Southeast Corridor projects have merit and we stand behind our Fiscal Year 2011 budget request of $150 million for the two projects.” [FTA]

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Buying and Selling
09/08/10 8:16am

Papers, Please?

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PAPERS, PLEASE? A Tomball city council member’s attempt to prohibit anyone unable to cough up government-issued documentation of citizenship or residence from owning any sort of property or business, or from renting a home within city limits was defeated last night by a vote of the entire council — along with a few other proposals intended to get area residents riled up about illegal immigration: “All of the controversial measures, which drew both strong support and heated opposition from citizens and activists Tuesday night, were proposed by first-term Tomball City Councilman Derek Townsend Sr. His move to place the items on Tuesday’s agenda was seconded by Councilman Mark Stoll, who said he did not support the proposals but wanted to give Townsend a venue for discussion. . . . Townsend told the audience his proposals were not about racism, but about standing up for the U.S. Constitution.” [Houston Chronicle]

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