05/09/17 2:45pm

The more-or-less repeating window patterns on the backs of the Buffalo Manor townhomes are currently on display as digging continues at 9339 Buffalo Spwdy. this week. That’s where Dallas-based developer Tradition Senior Living is setting up a 316-unit facility (about a quarter mile from the other senior living facility planned in the area, though this one doesn’t seem to have gotten a sharp-toothed cartoon avatar). All that dirt, once scooped, appears to be slated for a U-shaped mound on the segment of the irregularly-shaped property that reaches toward Main St., if this diagram of the site spotted by a reader is still up to date:

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Playing in the Dirt in Westridge
01/09/17 1:15pm

9330 Main St., NRG, Houston, 77025

9330 Main St., NRG, Houston, 77025The long-empty land at 9330 Main St. (shown here from its Buffalo Spdwy. side) appears to be picking up a part-time job before moving on toward senior-housing-dom. A reader snapped these shots of the property’s new parking and shuttle signage, including the security camera warnings tacked to the fence. The land is right across Main St. from NRG Park, where the actual football bit of the upcoming week of Super Bowl hubbub is scheduled to go on. The sale of the land to Dallas-based Traditions Senior Living went through at the end of August.

Meanwhile, the gas station recently planted across Buffalo Spdwy. at the Durhill St. 1st Stop Food Mart appears to have sprouted, and a Valero-colored canopy is now blooming over the corner:

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1st Stops near Westridge
11/17/16 11:30am

Smoke from Holmes Recycling Plant Fire

The fire that started late yesterday afternoon at the Holmes Road Recycling Center (just west of 288 south of 610) is still on the Houston Fire Department’s list of active incidents at the moment, after about 19 hours.  KHOU reports that the firefighting has been complicated by the need to cool off the heat-retaining piles of burning scrap metal on the scene, as well as a lack of water supply in the industrial patchwork around Pierce Junction. Hazmat crews reportedly say there’s no out-of-the-ordinary chemical concerns related to the smoke this time, though HFD captain Ruy Lozana did note to KHOU last night that the smoke’s strong smell and darker color is probably from leftover fluids in crushed cars catching fire.

Wind coming primarily from the south and southeast pushed smoke and haze from the fire across 610 all the way to the Texas Medical Center, some 3 miles north. Nearby Rice University sent out an alert around 4:45 warning folks with respiratory issues to stay indoors for a bit — below is a view (from several hours after that warning) of the haze from the Rice campus parking lot on Greenbriar, east of the stadium:

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Blowing In the Wind
10/06/16 11:00am

8800 S. Main St., NRG, Houston, 77025

The long-vacant former home of Samaritan Assisted Living was brought to the ground yesterday after demo crews got permission to knock it down, a reader tells Swamplot. The owners of the property at 8800 S. Main St. have been trying to get the scrawny strip (a full 68-by-640-ft. acre) into a new long-term ground-leasing relationship for at least the past year, and appear to have found one in September, per documents filed with the county — including a lease for a smidge less than the next 25 years  for an entity housed in Tuscon, AZ, which shares an address with the converted-church-school corporate headquarters of Mister Car Wash. 

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Car Wash Cleanout