10/13/14 2:15pm

Proposed Building for Saturn V Rocket, Rocket Park, Houston

The Saturn V rocket originally planned to boost a never-happened Apollo 18 spaceflight has been lying on its side near the corner of Saturn Ln. and 2nd St. and aimed at Lake Jackson since 1977. An air-conditioned, metal-framed structure was built around the Smithsonian-owned hulk 10 years ago to protect it from the elements, but it makes it difficult for visitors to appreciate just how hulking the rocket is. And recently the new structure has begun to look a bit dilapidated as well. Unprompted by any government agency or basketball team, San Antonio architect Brantley Hightower has been floating a proposal to wrap a more permanent structure around Houston’s most prominent rocketship — one that would restore the drive-by view of its full length (above) that the existing enclosure ruined, and make it clear just how big the Saturn V was:

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Houston Rockets
10/06/14 1:30pm

iFLY Indoor Skydiving Facility Under Construction, 9540 Katy Fwy., Spring Branch, Houston

A mere half-dozen readers have written Swamplot to ask about this strange multi-story steel-framed structure that’s been going up next to the Lowe’s on I-10 between Blalock and Bunker Hill — or its twin on the site of the former Casa Elena restaurant across the freeway from The Woodlands at 26824 Interstate 45 North. And we’re guessing a few more of you are curious as well, but just haven’t had the time to send in your photos and speculation. Capitalizing on the freeway mystery, the company behind the structure has set up a website at GuessWhatThisIs.com. (With indoor-skydiving facilities in 9 other U.S. cities already, iFLY has been through the drill before.)

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Indoor Skydiving
09/18/14 2:30pm

Detail from Installation at Texas Artist of the Year Exhibition, Havel Ruck Projects

Sawzall-wielding housecutters Dan Havel and Dean Ruck have been carving up 3 condemned homes (from Midtown, the Museum District, and the Third Ward) to gather the raw materials for their latest exhibition, which opens tomorrow in the Art League of Houston gallery, on the occasion of their being declared the Art League’s “Texas Artists of the Year.” Collected wall parts will be stacked in a “bowl-like structure” in the complex’s main gallery (see photo above).

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Havel Ruck Projects
08/05/14 3:45pm

Rendering of Proposed Concert Venue by Schaum/Shieh Architects, 2915 N. Main St., Houston

Map of Planned Sites Adjacent to 2915 N. Main Concert Venue, Houston

The operators of Fitzgerald’s and the Free Press Summer Fest are planning a large multi-venue development on N. Main St. on the east side of I-45. Renderings of 2 of the buildings, designed by a firm run locally by Rice architecture professor Troy Schaum, show a separate concert building with at least 2 separate stages inside and a freestanding ice house, which would be adjacent to a separate outdoor stage at the corner of N. Main and North St. The southern portion of the site (outlined in yellow in the map above) where those 2 structures would sit backs up to Little White Oak Bayou.

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North Main Music Central, by the Bayou
05/20/14 2:00pm

2309 Wichita St., Riverside Terrace, Houston

More than a month after purchasing the duplex-turned-31-year DIY renovation-and-expansion-project that became the life’s work of its owner, former VA nurse Charles Fondow, buyer Nick Ugarov tells the Chronicle‘s Craig Hlavaty that he’s “still mulling over plans” for the 5-bedroom, 4-and-a-half-bath, 2-turret still-not-quite-finished home at 2309 Wichita St. near Dowling. Ugarov picked up the foreclosed deck-bedecked structure for $251,000, from a bank sale that closed on April 11th, according to MLS records. That’s $101K over the ridiculously low asking price the sales agent had placed on the property, a well-known and much-gawked-at oddity in Riverside Terrace that’s been described as a poor man’s version of the Winchester Mystery House.

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Will It Stay or Go Now?
05/02/14 11:00am

Rendering of MATCH from Main St. and Holman, 3400 Main St., Midtown, Houston

Having matched the $20 million it decided it needed before beginning building its full-block Main St. arts complex, the organizers behind MATCH (the strikingly nicknamed Midtown Arts & Theater Center Houston) have decided to kick off construction work after an on-site event next Wednesday. The $25 million shared facility for more than a dozen independent arts groups (it was originally called the Independent Arts Collaborative) will go up on the 3400 block of Main St., also known as the former parking lot for the city’s former code enforcement building on the next block toward Downtown. The new rendering above of the design by San Antonio’s Lake Flato and Houston’s Studio RED shows the view from Main St. and Holman, looking north.

Here’s a fly-through in and around the main breezeway corridor of the 59,000-sq.-ft. collection of theaters and galleries and plazas and office spaces, starting from the same corner:

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Could Use $5 Million More
03/19/14 5:00pm

IT’S GETTING A NAME CHANGE, BUT THE ASTRODOME WILL STILL BE RELIANT ON COUNTY COMMISSIONERS TO REMAIN STANDING North Ticket Booth, Reliant Astrodome, 8400 Kirby Dr., HoustonThe Houston Chronicle‘s Kiah Collier has what appears to be the first official confirmation that the name change NRG Energy plans for Reliant Stadium and Reliant Park is meant to extend to the Astrodome and its signage as well. The Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. gave the go-ahead to today to rename it all and put up new signs. Say hello to NRG Stadium, NRG Park, NRG Center, and — yes — NRG Arena and NRG Astrodome. [Kiah Collier on Twitter; previously on Swamplot] Photo of demolished ticket booth at Reliant Astrodome: Jim Ellwanger [license]

03/12/14 10:15am

Reliant Astrodome and Reliant Stadium, Reliant Park, Houston

In what appears to be a bid to get more people to pronounce Houston’s major industry in a stilted quasi-drawl, the parent company of Reliant Energy has decided to rebrand Reliant Stadium and Reliant Park. The Houston Chronicle‘s Kiah Collier reports that henceforth (or after a vote by county commissioners at least) they shall be known as NRG Stadium and NRG Park. Collier’s sources don’t seem to have mentioned whether the name-change will result in similar switches for the other structures in the sports-and-convention complex, labeled the Reliant Center, Reliant Arena, and Reliant Astrodome since 2002.

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The New Old Home of the Texans, Etc.
02/18/14 10:15am

A CROWDFUNDING CAMPAIGN TO KEEP THE WICHITA ST. MYSTERY HOUSE UNDER RENOVATION FOR ANOTHER 30 YEARS OR SO 2309 Wichita St., Riverside Terrace, HoustonA former city librarian is channeling the don’t-stop-the-renovating spirit of Charles Fondow in her bid to raise enough funds to purchase the seminal Houston DIY-contractor-hobbyist-visionary’s remarkable former home in Riverside Terrace. “Help us raise the funds to buy it outright so we can complete the additions in our own time,” writes Virginia Verner in the promotional copy for her crowdfunding effort on website GoFundMe. Keeping the whir of power tools going appears to be one of the goals: “Current plans are to repair necessities first, inhabit the front house, and over time work to complete the unfinished bits. Events for repair and recreation will become a fixture in this abode.” The homeowner Verner hopes to replace in the 4,861-sq.-ft. expansion and renovation project at 2309 Wichita St., just 5 houses east of the Hwy. 288 feeder, worked consistently at his creation for 31 years before passing away in 2011. Perhaps paralleling the sincere, hardworking, but perenially underfunded Fondow, Verner has set the fundraising goal for her effort at $150,000 — the exact asking price for the property, which appeared on the market last Friday for the first time since its foreclosure in 2011. No mention is made how renovations might be funded after the acquisition. As of this morning, the website indicates she’s received pledges for 0.1 percent of her goal. [GoFundMe; previously on Swamplot] Photo: HAR

02/14/14 11:00am

2309 Wichita St., Riverside Terrace, Houston

Fans and confounded passers-by of the unique castle-like construction at 2309 Wichita St. that former VA nurse Charles Fondow left after his death in 2011 will be interested to note that the 31-year Riverside Terrace renovation and expansion project he never completed is now for sale again — as of yesterday afternoon. And the price is significantly lower than the $325,000 it was listed at 3 years ago. The new owner of the 4,861-sq.-ft., 5-bedroom property — who according to county tax records is a division of Deutsche Bank — is asking just $150,000 for the property.

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A Renovator’s Dream
01/31/14 10:15am

THE HOBBLED DOME MAKES HISTORY Interior of Houston AstrodomePsssssssst! Don’t tell anyone, but the Astrodome was quietly listed on the National Register of Historic Places earlier this month. That means some future use for the almost-50-year-old structure might qualify for a few federal and state tax breaks, and that permits for mining coal on the property now might be a little more difficult to obtain. Also, there’ll likely be some sort of plaque. [National Parks Service, via Anna Mod; more info; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Russell Hancock

01/13/14 10:45am

Suchu Dance, 3480 Ella Blvd., Ella Plaza Shopping Center, Oak Forest, Houston

The 1,500-sq.-ft. space deep in the crotch of the Ella Plaza Shopping Center just south of the railroad tracks at 3480 Ella Blvd. is the new home of modern dance troupe Suchu Dance. It’s also the former longtime Houston haunt of Patsy Swayze‘s Houston JazzBallet Company and the Swayze School of Dance. Long before the dance teacher made it big with her choreography for Urban Cowboy in 1980 and decamped to Hollywood, Swayze taught hundreds of gyrating Houstonians — including her 5 children, in the strip center corner. Her son Buddy, who as Patrick Swayze went on to star in Dirty Dancing and Ghost, started barging in on classes there at the age of 3, long before playing football at Waltrip High School across the street; he met his wife, Lisa Niemi, in the strip-center studio as well. He died from pancreatic cancer in 2009; his mother passed away in California’s Simi Valley last September.

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Somebody Put Baby in a Strip Center Corner
11/04/13 5:00pm

WILL THE RODEO OR THE TEXANS PAY RENT TO USE THE ASTRODOME? Contradicting teevee reporter Ted Oberg’s declaration a couple of weeks ago that the county’s own projections show that the renovated Astrodome would barely break even, the Chronicle’s Kiah Collier produces the county’s underlying single-sheet financial summary (PDF), which projects net operating income of $1.9 million a year for a redone Dome, based on $4 million in revenue. There’s not a lot of detail behind any of the “ballpark” figures that go into that projection, though — and there’s clearly been disagreement over a couple of revenue sources that may or may not be included in it. The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has now officially endorsed (PDF) the bond proposal on tomorrow’s ballot that would fund the conversion of the Astrodome into “The New Dome Experience” — but only, it seems, after wresting commitments from county officials to create some sort of repair fund for Reliant Stadium and to pay for repairs to the Reliant Arena — before replacing it, somewhere down the line. Judge Emmett and the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp.’s Edgar Colón now say the Rodeo may not have to pay rent to use the revamped facility, but whether the free-rent deal the Rodeo had with the Astrodome legally applies to a renovated and seemingly repurposed facility isn’t quite so clear to other officials Collier talks to, who claim any payments would be “worked out later.” The Houston Texans, meanwhile, who earlier this year with the Rodeo promoted a study showing how a $29 million demolition of the Dome would clear way for 2,500 shiny new parking spots — have been standing on the sidelines while the bond proposal is put to voters. Really, the team would have no interest at all in using a completely revamped name-brand facility right next to the site of the 2017 Super Bowl, even? “If the Astrodome is renovated,” the team’s coy statement reads, “we would consider using it, but do not have a specific use in mind at the present time . . .” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot] Rendering of the New Dome Experience: New Dome PAC/Kirksey Architecture

11/01/13 12:30pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY RUNNER-UP: SPLENDORS OF THE EAST “. . . So much of our City and our history lies EAST of downtown but all too often, white people (largely) ignore that entire side of town. I’d argue that the ship channel and the refineries that line it are the backbone of the City. That U of H and TSU shouldn’t be ignored. That there’s hidden treasure to be found in the 3rd and 5th Wards. That Riverside Terrace is amazing. That Hobby Airport is way better than IAH unless you are flying overseas on a carrier not named United. That Clear Lake-NASA-Kemah are better than Greater Katy. That the San Jacinto Monument matters. That unless you’ve visited the original Ninfa’s, eaten at Kanomwan, chugged beer at Moon Tower Inn, or stood in line for fried chicken at 3 a.m. at Frenchy’s, then you need to get out of the City Centre bubble. Oh, and the soul of the ‘old’ Montrose and Heights can be found East of US 59.” [doofus, commenting on Comment of the Day: Downtown Is on the Edge] Illustration: Lulu

10/02/13 3:45pm

It would seem that tilt-wall technology is not just for office buildings in the suburbs — but war memorials in the suburbs too! Yesterday, the Sugar Land Parks Dept. and local members of the Tilt-Up Concrete Association (whose national conference is in Houston this year) dedicated this site in Sugar Land’s Memorial Park for the Veterans’ Memorial, designed by the same firm, Powers Brown, that’s engineering the 6-story Sierra Pines II in The Woodlands, thought to be the tallest tilt-wall building in Texas. If you’re into this sort of thing, you can see how the memorial was propped up into place, thanks to plenty of pics the Parks Dept. posted to Facebook:

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