04/28/17 2:30pm

Sure, nervous economists and friends, go ahead and fret about how the coming robot revolution is likely to decimate the availability of middle-class jobs. But the likely wide-ranging effects of technological change are notoriously difficult to predict. For example, after viewing the dramatic promotional video above, which brings to the treed expanse of a 0.78-acre vacant lot in The Woodlands the full power of remote-controlled robot-camera cinematic glory, does another possibility come to mind? With this marriage of drone footage, music-video-intro aesthetics, desktop video software, and soundtrack punch, has a Woodlands-area real estate agent stumbled upon the secret to unleashing desires hidden deep inside us all . . . to feed a new vacant land boom?

As delicate orchestral swells matched to lingering aerial pans and zooms tug at our emotions and the full majesty of 67 N. Glenwild Cir. (conveniently located  between The Woodlands Preparatory School and the entry gate to the Club at Carlton Woods Creekside) comes into view, can we imagine a new — dare we dream? — vacant-lot-buying frenzy, the wider availability of new technologies enabling craftily orchestrated drone footage to surround and tempt us, and transforming this once dowdy sector?

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Flyover Country, The Woodlands
12/22/15 9:45am

Spring Town Center, Kuykendahl Rd, Spring, TX 77389

38 miles of Grand Parkway are expected to open early next year — NewQuest Properties is prepping Spring Town Center for the anticipated additional traffic by adding five new pad sites to the retail complex, located off of Kuykendahl Rd. south of FM 2920. Grand Parkway Segments F-1, F-2, and G — running between US 290 and the Eastex Freeway — are kind-of-sort-of nearing completion following a flood-heavy 2015, and are expected open in the first quarter of 2016.

The new additions to the shopping center are highlighted in yellow in the map above, and the zoomed-in section below along Kuykendahl:

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Coming This Fall to Spring
07/16/15 12:15pm

Frame from Photo Sphere Tour of ExxonMobil Campus, Springwoods Village, Houston

Update, 4 pm: Well, whaddya know? The photo sphere images have mysteriously disappeared from Google Maps, rendering our embeds defunct. Guess you might want to go ahead and set up that meeting after all.

Employees have been populating ExxonMobil’s new consolidated Springwoods Village campus since last year, but the company hasn’t exactly opened the place up to visitors. Which makes it a little odd that immersive virtual tours of the place, featuring both indoor and outdoor spaces around the 385-acre complex, have now appeared within Google Maps. If you just want to have a look around, there’s no need to bug your employee pal to arrange an on-site “business meeting” for you. All you need to do is poke around the photo spheres. From each spot you’ll have 360-degree 4Ï€ steradian views around you, if you click and drag within the image:

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04/02/15 3:00pm

Energy Center Under Construction, ExxonMobil Campus, Springwoods Village, Houston

From a source who wishes to remain unidentified come these pix of the glass-box keystone suspended at the entrance to ExxonMobil’s new north Houston campus. The 385-acre facility, which opened to employees last spring, is now largely occupied but remains under construction. The Energy Center, with its hovering 10,000-ton “floating cube” raised 80 ft. above ground, will serve as the campus’s front gate, welcoming visitors as well as shortcut-eschewing employees to the 10,000-worker compound.

The building will include a meeting and training center, and is meant to “represent the ExxonMobil brand for the long term,” according to a company document. Earlier photos showed an extensive scaffolding structure holding up the centerpiece; it’s now been removed.

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Flying Square Energy Donut
03/17/15 4:15pm

35-fazio-way-01

35-fazio-way-02

An expansive Mediterranean number in The Woodlands borders a nature reserve, but there’s nothing reserved about the sprawling home itself, which looks over the 11th fairway of the Carlton Woods Creekside Golf Course. Even the listing description eventually runs out of over-the-top adjectives to go with the photos. Envisioned by Patrick Berrios Designs and built by Termeer Custom Homes, the former Showcase of Homes home landed on the market earlier this month with a $3.35 million price tag. Its lot occupies about an acre well beyond the (manned) entrance gate of the community, which is accessed from Kuykendahl Rd. south of Spring Creek’s swath. Amid the interior’s layers of materials, iron ornamentation unspools (top) throughout the home, keeping anemia at bay.

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Indoor Grilling