That excavator first rolled out here on La Branch and Binz last summer — and 11 months later this is how the site looks: Catty-corner from the Children’s Museum, the Museum Point Professional Building appears to be all but complete. The 4-story building at 1401 Binz was originally planned to be 30,000-sq.-ft., with retail on the first floor, a clinic and offices on the middle floors, and some kind of residence (“with a garden terrace”) up top. A 160-car parking garage was also planned.
“There’s a lot that’s recently been cleared immediately behind the Asia Society,” reports a reader. You know the one, at the corner of Oakdale and Caroline St.? The one whose owners refused to sell, forcing Asia Society architect Yoshio Taniguchi to design around it? Where there was that 1930s vine-covered home being used as a doctor’s office that was supposed to be sold and renovated into a restaurant, but never was?
Well, in February, 5219 Caroline appeared in the Daily Demolition Report. And this photo taken from the median shows what the site looks like now. The reader continues:
All of the neighbors have questioned who owns the property and what is to happen to it. According to HCAD it appeared to be owned by Balcor, the company behind the rather unpopular Parc Binz. . . . We’re wondering if the Asia Society is trying to buy the land . . . [T]he neighbors who live in the town homes across from Asia Society have complained that the social events held on site tend to be quite loud, quite late. Overall, the neighborhood couldn’t be happier to have this organization in its bounds. And, if they were to own that land, if only they’d open a little gourmet coffee shop. That would please hundreds of people. . . . I’ve heard from Asia Society . . . that they’re trying to purchase the land. I think there is something more going on there — but no one is talking at this point.
Photo: Allyn West
A trio of Rice grads has come up with what seems to be a kind of golden mean between gentrification and decay, when it comes to restoring an old home that no longer works the way it should and yet still preserving the character of the neighborhood: Andrew Daley, Jason Fleming, and Peter Muessig are calling it InHouse OutHouse, reports OffCite, and it’s a prefabricated core consisting of a kitchen, bathroom, and mechanical, electrical, and plumbing systems that’s then inserted — like a transplanted kidney, say — into a hole cut in the wall. The photo here shows just such an insertion of the team’s prototype — which they estimate cost almost $35,000 and took 220 hours to build — at the Bastrop Stuart House among the Project Row Houses in the Third Ward. [OffCite] Photo: Mary Beth Woiccak via OffCite
Let’s do 2: As construction at U of H on the $105 million no-name replacement football stadium plows on, the regents have decided to go ahead and redo the basketball arena, too. It probably won’t look like this; the rendering shown here has been circulating since February. No, the regents’ decision this past Monday really means that other, newer designs will be undertaken to freshen up the 43-year-old Hofheinz Pavilion — where fashion mogul and Houston real estate player Hakeem Olajuwon first honed his shakes before opening his DR34M store in the old Jim West Mansion in Clear Lake.
The Houston Chronicle reports that, if approved, the project — which some reports have costing as much as $77 million — would introduce nicer locker rooms for the players and “premium seating” for fans, as well as a new sound system and video boards above the court. UH athletic director Mack Rhoades tells the Chronicle that as many as 9 other schools in the newly formed American Athletic Conference have, or are building, new arenas.
Rendering: UH Athletics
Near Brays Bayou’s switchback just east of SH 288, this relisted, refurbished 1941 abode in North MacGregor Oaks sports a few water features: a small fountain off the front walkway’s river rock border and a grotto (with koi) beneath a pergola out back. The midblock property has a sidewalk in front (not pictured), but its immediate neighbor in Timber Crest does not — giving the street the feel of a time-warp that’s also apparent in the architectural shift from prewar 2-story homes on urban-size lots to postwar ranch-style ones on deeper lots. Last week, this recently stuccoed property with full quoin dressing returned to the market, at $315,000, after a 6-month rest.
What used to be just a corner lot and one of those green tell-tale signs in Midtown is becoming a little more parklike, it seems: Parks department rep Estella Espinosa says that Elizabeth Glover Park at Elgin and Austin will be closed through August while crews upgrade lighting and drainage systems and install new features, including a crushed granite plaza, dog run, and bocce ball court. According to a post yesterday at Midtown Houston Rocks, there are 2 other parks getting a similar treatment: Midtown Park at Gray and Bagby and Baldwin Park between Crawford and Chenevert on Elgin, a few blocks southeast of here.
Photo: Allyn West
In the middle of last summer, Interfaith Ministries closed on almost 76,000 sq. ft. of Midtown property spanning 2 catty-corner blocks just north of HCC, including the PrimeWay Federal Credit Union building shown here at 3303 Main St.; the organization says it’s closing in on the $12.5 million needed to fund the renovation of the 39,000-sq.-ft. bank into its headquarters and the construction of a new 14,000-sq.-ft. Meals on Wheels distribution center at Elgin and Fannin.
HISD voted on Thursday night to reopen the closing Ryan Middle School next year as a magnet for students interested in the medical field. Though community protests have tried to move HISD to keep the Third Ward school open, a vote a month ago decided that the 263 Ryan students — the fewest at any HISD middle school, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Ericka Mellon — would be consolidated at Cullen Middle School, about 4 miles away on Scott St. The 1926 Elgin St. building that was the original Yates Colored High School, reports abc13, will be reopened as the Baylor College of Medicine Academy at Ryan to “allow more students to compete for admission into the highly selective DeBakey High School for the Health Professions.” Also approved in Thursday’s vote is a second magnet, the Energy Institute High School, though HISD has not yet chosen where that will be. [Houston Chronicle; abc13; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
This is what’s going up on some prime spurfront property at the University of Houston. Next to a Chinese restaurant and that prideful parking garage on Spur 5 that inspired the Houston Chronicle’s Lisa Gray and some student rappers back in 2010, the 2-story building at the end of Calhoun Rd. on campus is being billed as Cougar Den Plaza.
Despite the community’s protests, HISD voted 5-3 last night to close Ryan Middle School at the end of the school year, reports the Houston Chronicle’s Ericka Mellon: “Roughly two dozen speakers — mostly alumni and community activists — blasted the Houston Independent School District over the closure plans, at times nearing tears and shouting from the audience. They called the Ryan closure ‘blatantly discriminatory.’” Ryan’s 263 students, reports Mellon, are the fewest among HISD middle schools; the students will be consolidated about 4 miles away at Cullen Middle School on Scott St. HISD superintendent Terry Grier says that Ryan’s 1958 Elgin St. building might be repurposed into a DeBakey-like health-careers magnet. [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
The steps in front of Ryan Middle School were the site of a rally yesterday in protest of an HISD proposal to close and consolidate the historic Third Ward school. HISD says the proposal calls to move students to Cullen Middle School on Scott St. because of low enrollment at Ryan, shown at right, which opened on Elgin St. when Yates High School moved to a new location in 1958. But teevee reporter Demond Fernandez says that the protestors see it “as a pattern of closing schools in predominately African-American communities. . . . And they say if HISD trustees move to pass a decision like that tonight, they may be prepared to go to court.” [abc13] Photo: Wikimedia Commons
As a checkerboard of townhome development builds out the Rosewood neighborhood south of Midtown, this sunny yellow house with poppy red shutters rather emphatically states its enduring presence on a corner lot it has occupied since before the Southwest Fwy.’s south-of-downtown bypass cut a slice through the block 3 lots away. Today, the orderly 1930 property presents itself as an urban compound, though one softened by its back-in-the-day side porch, pergola, and garden.
Ah, Friday: Why not take a stroll down Binz St. in the Museum District and have a look at what’s going on? Let’s head east from here: the corner of La Branch and Binz, near the Children’s Museum.
Our guide, Swamplot reader David Hollas, provides the photos and the observations:
Thieves made off with copper wiring from UH’s University Center late Saturday night, a UH public safety department bulletin reports: A contractor noticed early Sunday morning that the wiring had gone missing; a reader tells Swamplot that this knocked out the building’s power and is delaying renovations. The Barnes & Noble and Cougar Byte stores inside the UC have been scrambling to set up temporary locations elsewhere on campus.
Comment of the Day: Manifest Destiny
“One day, this entire area will be called The Texas Medical Center.” [john@UHD, commenting on The New Mixed-Use Building in the Museum District]