The HBJ’s Jennifer Dawson picks up an interesting detail about Springwoods Village, the mysterious eco-themed community being planned by a mysterious company for 1,800 mostly forested acres just south of the Woodlands, at the intersection of I-45, the Hardy Toll Road, and (someday) the Grand Parkway. Coventry Development, still won’t talk about the project’s connection to the rumored but not-yet-announced corporate campus ExxonMobil appears to be building next door, which is expected to consolidate most employees currently based in Houston and Fairfax, Virginia. But it sure looks like Coventry is banking on something big close by: Development director Keith Simon tells Dawson that
Coventry will develop commercial parcels in Springwoods before the residential acreage. The company’s strategy is to build commercial first to create tax value that will funnel money through the tax district to fund infrastructure.
Building standalone office parks and strip centers in the middle of a forest is, of course, a time-honored Houston development tradition. More often these days though, the sprawling houses go in first. But if the major centralized campus of the second-largest publicly traded company in the world is going to bring in thousands of workers nearby pretty soon anyway, yeah — what’s the point?
“These days, South Park is undergoing yet another change: an influx of Hispanic residents, from 16 percent in 2000 to nearly 20 percent in 2009. That number is expected to jump to 22 percent in five years, while the number of black residents is on the decline: 82 percent in 2000 compared to an estimated 77 percent five years from now. Census data shows no white people living in the area at all. . . . The median home price is $50,400 — an increase of 15 percent since 2000. This sounds promising until another statistic is revealed: The median income is a mere $33,196 per year, which is nearly 15 percent less than ten years ago. 
“My fiance and I have wanted to purchase this home for over a year. We’ve heard the banks won’t approve financing due to the foundation problems; we’d love to restore it to [its] original glory, it needs a MCM loving family–maybe you’re an investor who’d like to help us out? We don’t want this house to get into the wrong hands, it’ll break our hearts.” [
Bellaire’s city council approved an agreement earlier this week that makes the future of the 5-acre property that used to be Teas Nursery a little more clear: It’ll be some sort of public space, but the exact details will be worked out by a new conservancy, with input from the public. A foundation controlled by two Bellaire brothers bought the property at 4400 Bellaire Blvd. late last year — after the nursery’s owners announced plans to sell it off piece by piece to homebuilders. The Jerry and Maury Rubenstein Foundation now plans to deed the land to the city. Under the agreement, half of the conservancy’s members will be appointed by the city, and half by the foundation. [
