Houston, Texas real estate development, home buying, landscape, and design

Keep up the good work, Swamplotters: Lots of great lines, conversation, and info in the comments sections this past week! Here are a few standouts:

• IKEA Checkout Gets Some Sexy
  From Chris: “I particularly enjoyed the W. Gray Kroger attack because so few people seemed to pay attention. Like it was such a part of the grocery shopping experience…”
• Washington Ave.: Extending The Core?
  From Jimbo: “Hey, if they want to build the Getty on the Washington corridor I’m all for it but I don’t think the views are going to be able to compare.”
  From Nick: “Just heard from a local business owner that a large portion of this lot has been purchased for development by HHN Homes (http://www.hhnhomes.com/). This is presently not listed as an upcoming or currently available project. I would imagine that they would/will sell or lease parcels off, as its a big chunk of land, and develop whats left.”
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Organized
  From jeremy: “It looks like the awkward love child of a recent romance between an IKEA/HGTV lovin’ young couple and their 60’s era house that their parents left them before moving to Florida.”
• Daily Demolition Report: Ciro Down?
  From Tim: “If they plan on demolishing us they might kill about 50-100 people. Anyone need a catering?”

Just a few of the notable contributions from Swamplot readers this past week:

• City Shuts Down Gables of Inwood; Park Memorial Condos Next?
  From John: “. . . the problem is that 80% of the parking is directly UNDER units. So if the parking is in danger of collapsing there are some people that live right above the garage that may be a bit incoveniened if their homes go crashing through the floor.”
• Bennigan’s Rides into the Sunset
  From IJ: “I’ll mis eating the Monte Cristo. I will not miss the writhing agony of allnight heartburn that followed.”
• Antique for Sale: Heights Theater on the Block
  From Neil: “Are you sure this hood isn’t Citibanked yet?”
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Draped
  From karen: “I was all like ‘finally, an old ranch from Old Braeswood!’ until I got to the conference rooms and then the pool. Not Old Braeswood!”

Your comments make Swamplot much more tasty! Try these bites from the past week:

• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Stuffed
  From karen: “I can’t believe how many houses were built in Houston between 1950 and 1970. It’s like a population explosion happened at the same time that central a/c was invented.”
• InnerLoopCondos Wants To Know: Would You Prefer Ugly, Pretentious, or Simply Out of Place?
  From Chuckles: “I agree with littlehands…If they put the mountain in that’d kickass…then maybe they wouldn’t need the indoor ski arena…”
• Help for the Huntwick
  From Robert: “The dregs of the apartment business that couldn’t get hired anywhere else would end up there, for awhile at least, but the lunacy of the organization ultimately would drive most sane people away.”
• Snow Mountain, Texas: Indoor Skiing in Houston
  From laanba: “Part of me wants to make fun of this and the other part of me wants to go skiing.”
• The Osteens’ “Leopard-Skinned Luxury”: Fancy or French?
  From Miz Brooke Smith: “What are they trying to do, re-create the Garden of Eden? If so, the tiger-skin chair is a no-no.”

Hey, great comments this week, everybody! Here are a few favorites:

• Finding Hidden Value in the Tremont Tower
  From RWB: “Tremont Tower has plenty of value for me. Amusement value. It’s a gift that keeps on giving.”
• The New Regent Square: Details and Drawings
  From Elouise A. Jones: “Ugly brick without the proper pigments is very dull, depressing and flat. Unfortunately CVS has put it all over Texas. So have the corner banks. It’s not too late guys to reconsider your choices. Think Texas vernacular, please. Overhangs and trees, clean lines, and don’t forget the sky and good lighting, park benches, birds and a place to water your dog.”
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Open Bar
  From Ryan: “They really want to be artsy. The statue of the horse on the breakfast table is an interesting way to go about it though, as you have to look under the horses belly and around its junk to talk to someone on the other side.”
• White Oak Tower: It Was All Just a Bad Drawing
  From Corey: “Leave the single-use, single-family-only building to the dying exurbs. A nice mix of land-use has been and will continue to be the strong suit of the Heights.”

No open-house tour from us this weekend . . . you can go it alone! Let us know if you see anything interesting. In the meantime, enjoy these tasty reader comments from the past week:

• Heaven on Earth Sells Again
  From mt: “8′-0″ ceilings are the best you will ever do on this building. Brave souls have looked at removing floors to increase ceiling height, (or even better, adding double height spaces to the ends of the building) but the cost is ridiculous.”
• Most Unknown: Ashford Point Palace of the Golden Orbs
  From Ben Berwick: “It’s as if each level in the temple serves as a higher order of sought righteousness, whereby a zenith of faith (or brainwashing) culminates on a small platform within the apogee of the dome”
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: House Pool
  From margo: “I’ve been known to hang a few bras from my treadmill but never a dead animal.”
• Tips Only: Downtown-to-Midtown Zero-Emission Shuttle
  From Jim: “I dunno … the resemblance is uncanny. Then again, TV’s William Frawley and architect Ludwig Mies van der Rohe also looked a lot alike, and I’m at least 65 percent sure they weren’t the same person.”
• Between Gotham and Renoir: Squeezing New Apartments into the Shepherd Curve Theme Park
  From Pat: “We’ve GOT to get some decent sidewalks, more than one-half person wide, that actually go somewhere and keep all of our residents, neighbors and dog-walkers out of the middle of what is already a major “cut-through” street. Where the Sidewalk Ends is not just a children’s book.”

Swamplot loves comments! Here’s a roundup of some of the best comments submitted by our readers over the last week:

• “Dude, What Gives?”: Cafe Artiste’s Disappearing Act
  From Jackson: “. . . I used to like their brunch that came with eggs and tamales, and I never hurled after eating there.”
• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Brick Bath
  From GoogleMaster: “That bathroom really creeps me out. A bathroom should feel private, not like a locker room at 24-Hour Fitness. . . .”
  From Miz Brooke Smith: “. . . love those saloon doors to the his & hers lavatories so convenient to the hot-tub/fireplace disco fern bar love nest. Also the way the glossy-painted low ceilings and the slate floors have…the same texture! . . .”
• That Enormous Parking Garage Behind the River Oaks Shopping Center
  From Jim: “I assume the large circular thing behind Barnes & Noble is Weingarten’s Brain-o-Tron, which they’ll use to send out radio waves out that will erase our thoughts and replace them with the feeling that this crappy strip center is better than what was torn down. . . .”