- 4124 Gum Dr. [HAR]
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Tag: 77539
- 418 Lakeview Blvd. [HAR]
- 6710 Falcon Pt. [HAR]
- 702 Olde Oaks Dr. [HAR]
Industrial meets arboreal in this glassy contemporary home, hidden away on nearly 16 acres of wooded property in Dickinson, TX. Steel-framed window walls offer views of the forest outside throughout the 2-bedroom home, from the entryway to the master bedroom and bath (above). Polished concrete masonry and partition walls divvy up the mostly-open 3,700-sq.-ft. floor plan. The $1.6-million home and its woody buffer zone are set about half a mile east of the Gulf Freeway:
Stone’s Throw from I-45
UNMARKED GRAVES UNCOVERED IN DICKINSON AFRICAN-AMERICAN CEMETERY 
Over the weekend, volunteers clearing brush and whacking weeds at the Magnolia Cemetery, the African-American cemetery between League City and Dickinson near FM 646 and Highway 3, found hundreds of unmarked graves that date back before the Emancipation Proclamation. Now, reports abc13’s Erik Barajas, the Galveston County Historical Commission is working to identify the graves as the cemetery seeks state designation and protection as a historic site: Pastor William H. King III of Greater New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, behind which sits Magnolia Cemetery, tells Barajas: “‘There are slaves buried here. There are people from World War I, World War II, school teachers, people who worked in the community. . . . We want to make sure.'” [abc13] Photo: USGenWeb
STUCK IN MCDONALD’S 
A second family is suing a second area franchisee over playground injuries caused by a metal fastener at a McDonald’s PlayPlace. Last weekend 2-1/2-year-old Alexis Durant caught and gashed her lip on this exposed bolt in a plastic slide in the I-45 feeder road McDonald’s at Pine Dr. in Dickinson, claims attorney Jason Gibson. Last year, another Gibson client sued the owners of the McDonald’s on Uvalde Rd. just south of Woodforest Blvd. after claiming their 6-year-old son cut his head on a screw sticking into a plastic slide tunnel. McDonald’s USA declined to comment on the lawsuits, but issued a statement saying “The safety of our youngest customers is our top priority.” [Click2Houston] Photo: Click2Houston
SOUTH-OF-HOUSTON OUTLET MALL COMPETITION SETTLES ON TEXAS CITY Tanger Outlets had hoped to build a new mall in League City, but the land it had its eye on was sold at auction. So the company has announced it will be teaming up with rival mall developers Simon Property Group to build a mall in Texas City, where Simon was planning its own Galveston Premium Outlets instead. The new Tanger Outlets will sit on 55 acres on the west side of the Gulf Freeway, north of the Walmart Supercenter just south of the Holland Rd. exit. The first phase is expected to feature 90 stores in 350,000 sq. ft. Groundbreaking ceremony is scheduled for this month. [Tanger Outlets; previously on Swamplot]
This sprawling $2.35 million 13-acre estate sits on the left bank of a Dickinson Bayou tributary, across from that little shopping district with the steakhouse and the barber shop and the Dairy Queen. Past the gatekeeper’s cottage, you’ll find this 6-bedroom 2-story stucco home on the site, deep into a landscape of Spanish moss-draped oaks and crape myrtles. The home and its well-paneled interior dates to 1933, though a few of the interior floor coverings look like they might be a bit more recent:
- 4610 29th St., Dickinson [HAR]
Houston ranks 5th — below Long Island, Miami, Virginia Beach, New Orleans, and Tampa — in potential property damage from storm surges, according to an annual report from Corelogic. The company figures the resulting storm surge from a Category 5 Hurricane here would likely produce $20 billion in property loss — well behind Long Island’s $99 billion score. Can’t this city do a little better? We’ve got the high-hurricane-risk and low-lying-properties parts down cold. If we can just boost the property values a bit in those areas, we’ll be rolling with the high-stakes big boys next time.
The top at-risk area Zip Codes, according to the company’s report: 77573, 77554, 77059, 77571, 77062, 77566, 77586, 77539, 77546, and 77521. Locally, League City leads the way!
- 2011 Storm Surge Report [CoreLogic]
Image: Corelogic
GALVESTON BAY OIL SPILL: JUST A LITTLE TOPPING-OFF ACCIDENT According to the Coast Guard, the three-quarter-mile-long oil slick that made a few residents of San Leon feel a bit queasy, then washed up on the rocks at April Fool Point a week ago came from a spill caused by a Liberian-flag oil tanker — almost a week and a half earlier. The Omega Emmanuel reported a 50-gallon spill on February 8th as it was docked off Bolivar and taking on fuel from a barge. But the Coast Guard only tied the fuel oil to the tanker after environmental testing was completed this past Wednesday. “The cleanup ‘is complicated because the oil is embedded in the rocks,’ [Coast Guard petty officer Prentice] Danner said. ‘It takes slushing (agitation) to get it out, so I can’t speculate on how long it will take.'” Is that the same goo off the coast of Bacliff too? [Ultimate Clear Lake; previously on Swamplot]
Update, 2/24: Oh, just 50 gallons, they’re saying now.
Coast Guard officials have yet to determine the cause of the “oily sheen” that appeared in Galveston Bay last week, but the cleanup has continued for several days and workers have still not identified the source. A three-quarter-mile-long sheen off the coast at Sixth St. in San Leon “was making some residents feel ill” when it appeared last Thursday, according to a report in the Galveston County Daily News. About 30 workers from Phoenix Pollution Control and Environmental Services were still cleaning up oily goo from a mile-long stretch of shoreline near April Fool Point at San Leon’s southern tip, a Coast Guard official told the Chronicle‘s Robert Stanton today. But the photo above, showing the slick on rocks at Bacliff — on the far northwestern side of the same peninsula — was sent to abc13 earlier today by a photographer who comments that workers didn’t want pictures taken. Another photo submitted by the same person appears to show boom deployed in the water off Grand Ave.:
The company behind the Houston Premium Outlets way up off 290 near Fairfield in Cypress has announced plans to build a similar outlet mall on the opposite side of Houston. Simon Property Group, also the owner of the Houston Galleria and the Katy Mills Mall, plans on calling the new 100-store, 350,000-sq.-ft. complex the Galveston Premium Outlets, but it’ll be located well north of the island in Texas City, just south of the Holland Rd. exit off I-45 and north of the Walmart Supercenter, on the west side of the freeway. From the drawing the company is passing around, the place should look a whole lot like its Cypress cousin, logo-tattooed tower and all.
The site is a 55-acre chunk of the stalled and probably flopped Lago Mar, a 7,000-home development announced 6 years ago.
The Galveston County Daily News‘s Laura Elder reports there are rumors another outlet mall is coming to the area as well, a couple of exits north on a 20-acre lot north of Cross Colony Dr. and west of FM 646 in Dickinson — this one from another national mall developer: Tanger Outlet Centers.
What’s the deal with the malls already in the area?
BEER CHALLENGER WILL LAUNCH FROM STEALTH LOCATION The launch crew reports it has been “keeping things quiet” while building a brew house and obtaining licenses: “Construction is under way on the Galactic Coast Brewing Co.’s brewery, which will be located in Galveston County where League City and Dickinson meet, just outside the city limits. John Ennis, Galactic Coast spokesman, says that location was chosen because it will allow the brewery to get Phase I of its plans up and running as quickly and efficiently as possible. The location was chosen for its proximity to top attractions such as NASA and the Clear Lake-Kemah waterfront. ‘This is going to be a true beer odyssey and there is a reason we chose to launch our brewery just down the street from the home of U.S. manned space flight,’ he says.” [Houston Business Journal]