Actual buildings, dismembered — for fun and profit! Here’s where you can find the latest:
Sign up for the Newsletter
Got an answer to this reader question? Or just want to be a sleuth for Swamplot? Here’s your chance! Add your report in a comment, or send a note to our tipline.
- Upper Kirby: “Someone is conducting a traffic study along the Southwest Freeway at Greenbriar,” a reader reports. “Is that someone finally going to build on the vacant block between 59 and Lexington?” Someone? Anyone?
Photo: Swamplot inbox
COMMENT OF THE DAY: RACING AHEAD “Dunno about demolishing before [a] permit is issued. But I do know that when they took down the Nissan dealership on the Katy Freeway a year or so back I was able to look at the already demolished and cleared site on StreetView the day the permit came up in the Daily Demo Report. So it certainly happens.” [Jimbo, commenting on Daily Demolition Report: Chelsea Place Lately]
BACK IN THE CHASE 
Things are pretty much back to normal on the lower floors of the JPMorgan Chase building at 712 Main St. Downtown, reports former Houstonist editor Jim Parsons, who’s been settling back into the ground-floor offices of the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance after last week’s fire on the 27th floor. “We went to the part of the basement where our storage is located and there was no evidence of water [there], which was a relief. The most noticeable things post-fire are that the marble floors in the building lobby are covered with Eucaboard and that giant fans are blowing air freshener all around the ground floor.” Parsons says the Chase banking hall is open for business, but doesn’t have any updated info about the smoked-out upper floors. Houston’s fire department began an arson investigation last week. [Previously on Swamplot]
Texas Southern University President John Rudley is now saying he gave the order to paint over 2 murals in Hannah Hall created 40 years ago by longtime TSU art professor Harvey Johnson. An earlier official statement issued by the university — and an abc13 story last week — had claimed the whitewashing had been a “mistake.” But Rudley fesses up to the Chronicle:
Rudley said the murals, which covered two walls in the Hannah Hall administration building, had become eyesores.
“When I bring dignitaries to campus, I can’t have them seeing that kind of thing,” Rudley said. “All art isn’t good art.”
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday city offices were open.
Is there a historic district in Chelsea Place? A couple demos says there is:
In from Swamplot roving photographer Candace Garcia: photos of the last moments of the UT Health Science Center’s Mental Science Institute at 1300 Moursund St. in the Med Center. The school’s department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences deserted the 1965 structure back in February, when it moved to a brand new 6-story Behavioral and Biomedical Sciences building near the corner of Cambridge and OST, south of the main Med Center campus in a new development dubbed UT Research Park. The vacant Moursund building was sold to the building executioners at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, who are now busy demolishing it “for future expansion.”
WEST END WALMART DEVELOPMENT GETS ITS KOEHLER ST. JOG Despite the protests of a number of speakers — including council member Ed Gonzalez — who wanted some study of neighborhood traffic to be conducted first, the planning commission yesterday approved a minor variance connected with the West End Walmart yesterday, after 2 earlier postponements. The variance allows Koehler St. to be extended from Yale St. to Heights Blvd., even though the resulting street alignment doesn’t meet city development standards. [HTV; previously on Swamplot]
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WE’RE ALL INTRUDERS HERE “Now, if I lived next to it . . . I would be vocally opposing it based on its proximity to me, but I have to say, those of you living near its proposed location were on the WalMart end not too long ago, changing the quality of life for many of your neighbors with your big stucco three and four story homes going in next to small bungalows. So, while you are throwing stones, you might want to consider that in the not so distant past those stones were being thrown at you.” [EMME, commenting on Y’All Can Discuss the West End Walmart on Your Own]
Liking the views you’ve seen of the new Walmart coming to the former Trinity Industries steel fabrication property at Yale and Koehler in the West End? Well, one of them could be yours! A few more of those front-row townhouses lining the property’s southern edge will soon be available, reports 11 News reporter Shern-Min Chow.
“Sitting on the couch to the fence line is roughly 55 feet,” brags Anne Marie Leahey, who says she’ll be selling her 1,167-sq.-ft. townhome on Center Plaza Dr. soon. Chow sounds impressed:
Her home is beautiful. The inside is stunning. As she pulled the bay window curtains back, it was clear the view outside would also be eye-catching. Her home looks out directly onto the site of the new Walmart.
Leahey, a Bonner Street Homeowners Association board member, was already thinking about moving before she heard of the new development, but has since decided to relinquish her home now instead of waiting. That’ll give some more dedicated Walmart fan a chance to enjoy the complete construction process from close range. She tells Chow she regularly gets calls from neighbors asking her if they should move, too.
HOUSTON’S NATURAL GAS PARKS 
Isn’t it about time this city got back to basics? A company called Southern Star Exploration will soon be setting up drilling rigs outside 3 city parks and a city service center in northeast Houston. Yesterday city council approved a 3-year oil and gas lease to let the company explore possible reserves under Herman Brown Park, Maxey Park, Brock Park, and a public works facility on McCarty Rd. What’s in it for the city? $200,000 for the lease, plus a promised 25 percent of any royalties. Mayor Parker says she doesn’t want drilling rigs set up on city property, but she’ll “look for more opportunities” for horizontal or slant drilling to get at what lies beneath. [abc13] Photo of Herman Brown Park: Gulf Coast Bird Observatory
First we crush ’em, then we crush ’em. Then we crush ’em and haul ’em away.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT LOCAL REALLY MEANS “How can you explain that the TacoBell/KFC, Panda Express, Smoothie King, and Subway aren’t local? Each of these are owned by a franchise company which is local. Only a portion of the local money spent there go to the corporate parents and the rest remain with the franchise owner. This is also true for MOST McDonald’s, Starbuck, and pretty much every ‘casual’ dining establishment. Yes, they are national names, but locally owned.” [kjb434, commenting on The New Strip Centers Coming to Heights Blvd. and Other Details of the Washington Heights District West End Walmart Plan]
METRO’S NEXT REAL ESTATE DEAL 
A tidbit from interim president and CEO George Greanias’s presentation to Metro’s new board yesterday: 2 entire floors of the transportation agency’s headquarters building just north of the Pierce Elevated at 1900 Main St. Downtown have been sitting vacant. For how long? That isn’t clear; the building was completed in 2005. Greanias’s suggestion: the floors “could be leased or occupied by Metro services now housed in other locations.” [Houston Chronicle; Hair Balls] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
