COMMENT OF THE DAY: A DEDICATED FAN’S SPRING BURGER REPORT 
“Carl’s Jr is about to open another factory of deliciousness in Spring, TX, corner of hwy 249 and Louetta Rd. built from the ground up, it started about two months ago, and just last week they hung the signs, no word on when it opens. I’ve submitted pictures to Swamplot, they might publish them soon.” [Sweetmocha, commenting on Burger Chains Ready Attack on Houston: Carl’s Jr., Smashburger, Five Guys] Photo: Sweetmocha
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Tag: 77070
Is all that living space on the second floor of this metal warehouse building right off the Tomball Pkwy. frontage road near the end of Jones Rd. really window-free? Built a decade ago, the 5,062-sq.ft. structure is an unrestricted property suitable for mixed use — and that includes homesteading.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: HAD BEEN SAVING THEM FOR SOMETHING “These are the first two buildings that IAN+A designed for Compaq way back when – and my first two high-rise buildings. Sad to see them go. I guess this means I can get rid of the drawings now.” [Tbarrow, commenting on HP Go Boom: Watch These Former Compaq Buildings Disappear in a Cloud of Dust]
If 2 office buildings go down in a cloud of dust in what looks like a forest, will anybody see it? In Houston, certainly — and so many onlookers have been kind enough to upload their own demolition videos, too. So here you go: vids of this weekend’s Controlled Demolition implosion of 2 unloved former Hewlett Packard office buildings at the future Lone Star College University Park campus near Hwy. 249 and Louetta. A much longer video from Hewlett Packard here features details and interviews.
THE COMING LOCAL HP IMPLOSION 
Two former Hewlett-Packard office buildings from the original Compaq World Headquarters campus at the corner of Hwy. 249 and Louetta will be demolished in a “controlled demolition” on September 18th. The 2 buildings, a 1,200-car parking garage, and a central chiller plant were purchased for $12.6 million by the Lone Star College System last year, as an extension to the 8 buildings the former North Harris Montgomery Community College System bought a year earlier to create its new University Park campus. But it’s clear the college was mostly interested in the parking spaces that came with the latest purchase. According to the terms of the sale, HP itself will manage the implosion of the 2 buildings, before turning over the resulting “usable green space” to the school. LSCS facilities guy Jimmy Martin explains the reasoning: “The cost to properly maintain the buildings in a ‘mothball’ state until they might have been needed in the future is $1.25 million annually. It was more cost-effective to have the contractor tear the buildings down as part of the purchase agreement.” [Champions Sun; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Geoff Sloan [license]
The Lone Star College System’s $42.2 million purchase price for that chunk of the former Compaq campus it closed on last month turns out to be $100 million less than the amount it had offered to Hewlett-Packard for the property a year earlier, reports Wall Street Journal reporter Maura Webber Sadovi. A few more tidbits from her report on the second-largest office purchase in the U.S. so far this year (The auction of Boston’s 1.8 million-sq.-ft. Hancock Tower for $660 million in March was the biggest):
The $35-a-square-foot price Lone Star paid was below the $57 average paid for the few suburban Houston office properties sold in the first quarter of 2009 and a deep discount to the $145 per-square-foot suburban average in the year-earlier first quarter, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York-based real-estate-research firm.
Expect to see administrators of the Lone Star College System (known until recently as the North Harris Montgomery Community College System) lounging around in some of the executive furniture HP threw into the deal at the last minute as well. How did they strike this bargain?
HEWLETT PACKARD GOES TO SCHOOL The purchase by the Lone Star College System (formerly the North Harris Montgomery Community College System) of the “core” of the former HP, former Compaq Computer campus at 249 and Louetta is now a done deal, chancellor Richard Carpenter reports: “The purchase includes approximately 1.2 million square feet of buildings as well as parking garages and other support infrastructure. This facility will serve multiple purposes for our system as we continue to grow and expand; however the center piece of the campus will be a new University Center to serve north Harris County that is expected to include at least eight university partners. In addition to the University Center, the campus will also house an instructional satellite center, Corporate College conference and training facilities, LSCS office space, as well as room for new program development and expansion.” [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot]
COMPAQ TO HP TO COLLEGE The Lone Star College System — formerly known as North Harris Montgomery Community College System — appears to be the mystery buyer for those 8 empty office buildings in the former Hewlett-Packard, former-Compaq campus at 249 and Louetta. Or at least a few of them: “The property would be used for educational purposes, but the size of the acquisition is still being determined, said Steve Lestarjette, associate vice chancellor of public affairs for Lone Star College. HP declined comment Thursday.” [Houston Chronicle]
ANOTHER BUYER FOR HP PARTS Somebody’s interested in those 8 empty office buildings on the former Compaq Computer campus off 249 and Louetta: “A little more than a year after Hewlett-Packard Co. put its 103-acre office campus on the sales block, the computer company is working with a buyer to finalize a sales agreement. Sources involved with the deal tell GlobeSt.com that following months of negotiations, the 2-million-square-foot office campus could be under contract within the next few weeks to a local buyer.” [Globe St.]
A few fun pics from around and about town! First, this crowd of black vultures ponders its next real-estate venture from atop a communications tower parked in a gated community in Cypress. Photographer Karen Morris happened upon the scene on Eldridge near Grant Rd.:
It was an awesome sight. Personally, if they adorned my rooftop every evening, I’d clean the roof, sell the house and move to the other side of town. . . . Black Vultures/Buzzards are a bit smaller and less colorful that the Turkey Vulture. They tend to follow the Turkey Vulture because it has a keener sense of smell and can find it’s meal through use of that sense. They eat dead animals and occasionally capture small live animals (field mice, etc.). Although they do not build a nest, they will take an abandoned nest. Often roost together as seen in this set of photos. If startled while roosting, they will regurgitate with power and accuracy.
More local habitat:
ORGANIC PIZZA, MADE TO ORDER FOR HOUSTON How perfectly in tune with Houston is this? The first-ever certified organic restaurant in the city will be . . . a franchise pizza chain! And it’s going into a European parking lot style shopping center — in the far northwest part of town, beyond FM 1960: “There’s even a gluten-free pizza crust option. But it’s not just the food that’s special; Pizza Fusion also carries a wide array of organic wines and a gluten-free beer made from sorghum. While the location may seem baffling to some — progressive, eco-friendly businesses and restaurants don’t tend to thrive in Houston, much less in our decidedly un-eco-friendly suburbs — there’s no denying the fact that Pizza Fusion is an exciting new restaurant to have on the scene. Want a Pizza Fusion in your own neighborhood? Good news: they’re looking to open a whopping 75 more franchises in Texas alone over the next five years.” [Houstonist]
Media-specific marketing helps bring everybody together! Just wait until the buyers of new Pulte homes in Willowbrook lured by this uh, interesting ad in this week’s Houston Press move in next door to folks attracted to the neighborhood by some very different marketing.
Tattoo fans: Watch the video below and meet your new neighbors!
