COMMENT OF THE DAY: ALL HOUSTON FLOODWATER BACKS UP IN THE SAME DRAIN 
“Every editorial and study which I have seen fails to consider the plug in the bath tub. Every drop of rainwater in the metro area ultimately finds its way to Galveston Bay (and then the Gulf of Mexico). During the major flood events this spring, the tide was exceptionally high and there was a strong steady wind from the southeast. The waters of Clear Creek and the San Jacinto River were nearly three feet above normal before the first drops fell. There was no outlet for the rain and it backed up and up and up. Nothing had changed for this flood except the wind and the tide did not work in favor of Houston.” [Jardinero1, commenting on Cross-County Accounting for the Houston Flooding Puzzle] Illustration: Lulu
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COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHAT’S REALLY STALLING HOUSTON’S DRIVE FOR SMOG REDUCTION 
“ . . . The serious ways to improve air quality in Houston are 1) to pass California emission standards for all vehicles, and 2) to install traffic light road sensors at intersections. I can’t believe how long we sit at intersections with no one moving.” [KB, commenting on Building for Baby Boomers; Revamping the Briar Club in Upper Kirby] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: FIBERGLASS PEAR TRAIL JUST FOLLOWING IN PEARLAND’S HISTORIC FRUIT FAKEOUT FOOTSTEPS 
“The only relationship that pears have to Pearland is that the early developers were trying to entice people to move to the area by claiming that there were pear orchards. (But there is a Figland St. in Pearland.)” [marmer, commenting on Re-Pearing the Pearland Brand] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HOW TO CUT THE COST OF THE FREE ASTRODOME MISCONCEPTION 
“No one voted to tear [the Astrodome] down. We voted not to spend money to refurbish it. Big difference. The only way forward is a multi-option vote: Tear it down, fix it up, or keep paying to do neither. Spell out the costs of each, so voters won’t assume doing nothing is free.” [Memebag, commenting on Count Wants To Fill In the Astrodome’s Flood Levels with Parking; previously on Swamplot] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: A GUESS AT PROPER ETIQUETTE FOR OUT-OF-FASHION DEED RESTRICTIONS 
“My old neighborhood – two houses ago – should be very worried as well. Right before I got there, some people had tried to rewrite the deed restrictions. Some other people blocked the rewrite. Which basically meant that the old restrictions – from the 1950s – were still in force – or were they? Half the regulations were either moot (who has a garbage incinerator in their back yards nowadays?) or illegal today. But more importantly: the restrictions were supposed to have been renewed in the 1970s and again in the 1990s, but it’s not clear they ever were. I wound up basically following the practical rule that whatever the county clerk has on record is in force whether it makes sense or not, so long as it is not rendered illegal by some other law. But I am not a lawyer, and I know that approach probably would not hold up in court.” [ZAW, commenting on Comment of the Day: Garden Oaks Question Marks Raise Question Marks Citywide] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY HOUSTON GREENSPACES CAN’T SHARE THE GREEN 
“The big money is coming from private donations (Buffalo Bayou Partnership, Hermann Park Conservancy, Memorial Park Conservancy), most likely with ‘strings attached’ that require that they must be used in a specific park. I’m sure the Parks and Rec people would love to do more special projects in the neighborhood parks, but it’s also going to require someone with deep pockets to step up for them.” [slugline, commenting on The Places a 117-Ft.-Tall Yellow Corkscrew Tower Could Fit In Along Buffalo Bayou] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE PROOF IS IN THE PERMITTING 
“You don’t need to read a university study to know the Houston housing market is going through a downturn. You don’t even have to look at HAR. To gauge the health of the Houston real estate market, you only have to look at the Daily Demolition Report: only 2 residential permits today; only 1 yesterday. Crisis!” [Angostura, commenting on Move-In Day Approaches for New Phillips 66 HQ; Montrose’s Crowded Mexican Restaurant Scene] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY FLOOD CONTROL ENTHUSIASTS KEEP EYEING PREVIOUSLY PAVED LOTS 
“This is a standard practice: to elevate [existing] commercial properties so they will drain off the property. It is very easy to do. The concern is that the city of Houston does not require new properties on old lots to detain water on the lot.  . . . Elevated commercial properties that do not mitigate acre-foot-for-acre-foot will lead to water running off and flooding adjacent properties. It is a simple concept, but developer propaganda is strong. The most common myth promulgated by the developers is that if something was already concrete then a new property need not mitigate run-off. The fact is, any time a new development is built that does not mitigate run-off, it will force water onto its neighbor. [Flooding, commenting on Former Fiesta Site Preps for Teardown as Heights Dry Zone Petitioners Circle] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: ELEVATING HOUSTON’S FREEWAYS TO GLOBAL MASCOT STATUS 
“If you want transit to be ‘Great for Tourism,’ then you’ve got to look at transit systems such as in NYC, London, and Tokyo that are not only exceptional but that serve as cultural iconography for the city. There has to be some showmanship. Houston’s METRO was never building a cultural icon, even if some people embraced it as such back in 2004 for lack of any sort of imagination otherwise. Ironically, I’ve given rides to the airport from international visitors from places as different as India and Australia, and they seem to really enjoy riding on the freeways, taking in the vast expanse of concrete and the tangle of overpasses and underpasses. Houston’s freeways are a spectacle! Houston’s freeways are cultural iconography!” [TheNiche, commenting on Feds: Unused Richmond Light-Rail Funding Offer Now Expired, Getting Thrown Out] Illustration: Lulu
Here’s this morning’s view of the former Corporate Plaza site, now sans the skeletal midrise that spent much of May wasting away. Standing at the edge of the rubble is the Texas Direct Auto billboard, visible here from its non-dayglo-yellow backside above the cluster of excavators picking over the last of the former midrise. On the left (at the corner of Kirby and 59) is the separately-owned Shell service station property, boxed in by the increasingly empty lot throughout the entire demo spectacle.
And Then There Was Shell
COMMENT OF THE DAY: LAYING OUT STRATEGIC ANGLES ON THE NEXT HEIGHTS BOOZE BATTLE 
“. . . Flooding? Really? There are no tracts of land any grocer could realistically acquire that are not already paved over for commercial spots. Nobody is going to open a liquor store in the middle of a residential section where there will be no traffic — there’s plenty of storefront space near by. The proposed change won’t impact bars and restaurants. . . . [The backers] are advocating for a policy change with respect to a policy that impacts their business. How else would you propose they do it other than hiring a law firm and PR firm to help them navigate the rather obscure laws that govern this thing?” [Heightsresident, commenting on H-E-B Would Like To Plant a Store in a Wetter Heights Dry Zone] Illustration: Lulu
Here’s the raw scene captured around lunch time today, when a small pack of excavators was sighted rooting through the debris at the base of the former Corporate Plaza I midrise. The increasingly see-through office building was fully de-striped some time between yesterday (second photo) and noon today (top); below is a quick video of the excavator crew gently yanking down a piece of what appears to be the 4th-story floor:Â
Break Another Little Piece
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHY THINGS LITERALLY LOOK BRIGHTER ON HOUSTON’S HORIZONS 
“Actually, Houston has substantially improved both air and water quality in the past few decades. I remember the haze days back in the early 90’s when you could not see more than a few miles through the smog when driving down the Katy Freeway, nor could you see the tops of the taller buildings. Also, nearly all of the illegal water pollution sources have been permitted and/or rerouted into treatment systems. The ones that haven’t are eventually caught and have to pay hefty fines, or the responsible people go to jail. It is true that much of the improvement was driven by federal and state regulation that trickled down to Houston, but that is true for most major cities.” [Superdave, commenting on Comment of the Day: Making Sure the House Wins Houston’s Toxicity Gamble] Illustration: Lulu
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHEN NOT ZONING BECAME BOLD NEW HOUSTON TERRITORY 
“. . . Nobody can deny that Houston does things differently, but it does these things in part by not doing something that every other major city does — by bucking the trend despite repeated opportunities to go along with that trend. Houston is so notable in this regard that the Wikipedia page on ‘Zoning in the United States’ has 2 sections of text about the history of zoning: ‘Origins & History’, and ‘Houston’. . . . Houston is the one and only control case that exists by which the impacts of zoning can be tested. To my mind, this qualifies as innovation. Zoning may have been innovative when it was first tried in NYC in 1916, I’ll also grant that — but it’s precisely 100 years later, and — now — Houston’s position is innovative.” [TheNiche, commenting on Houston’s Counterintuitive Optimism; San Jacinto Mall Redo] Illustration: Lulu
That’s 2 stories down and 8 left to go for the last holdout in the former Corporate Plaza office park, seen here from the northeast looking across Kirby Dr. toward 59. The freeway-facing and side facades of the once-10-story midrise have been totally removed, and the remaining facade is beginning to look a bit patchy around the top; piles of debris can be seen stretching out to the north of the structure, across the now-barren Upper Kirby plain where the partially demolished Corporate Plaza parking garage nearly demolished part of the demo team back in February.
- Previously on Swamplot: Long Drawn-Out Breakup of Corporate Plaza Nearing Final Stages at Kirby and 59Watch Corporate Plaza Fail to Demolish Its Demo Crew with Surprise Garage Collapse; Shredding of Corporate Plaza’s Parking Garage Now In Progress on Kirby Dr.; Sweeping Up the Crumbs at the Former Home of Miyako, Red Onion, and Madras Pavilion; Demo Crew Now Chewing Through Former Miyako, Red Onion, Madras Pavilion Office Complex on Kirby at Norfolk
Photo: Lulu
Office-Appropriate Cut on Kirby
