HEY, HEY, STAY OUTTA OUR CHICK-FIL-A A brief excerpt from that satirical article in the Cinco Ranch High School newspaper that sparked protests from students of neighboring schools at the LaCenterra Shopping Center last Friday: “You can’t help but be a little bit angry when you’re stuck in the Whataburger drive-thru behind an unimaginably large caravan of Katy cars, each sporting at least 12 stickers reminding you of their accomplishments. If they’re so great why can’t they go to their own Whataburger? There’s this feeling in our little corner of the world that just says: This is Cinco. Some believe there is a sense of ownership to the neighboring businesses and restaurants… Cinco’s Mission Burrito. Cinco’s Target. Cinco’s Taco Bell, Whataburger, Sonic. Seeing anything but maroon clad students and parents roaming the aisles seems odd to some. Don’t they have their own places to go? ” [Fort Bend Now]
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Tag: Fort Bend County
MAYBE SIENNNA IS AVAILABLE? Marketing new themed apartments has got to be tough these days — all those great Southern European-y names are already taken! “Out-of-state developers thought they had coined a great name for their senior living apartments in Katy. Then they found out a nearby master-planned community had already claimed the same name. A joint venture led by Georgia-based Formation Development Group LLC broke ground in May on The Sienna at Cinco Ranch apartments at 24001 Cinco Village Center Blvd., west of Houston. But the site was a little too close for comfort to the Sienna Plantation master-planned community located south of Cinco Ranch in Fort Bend County. So Formation Development formulated a slight change of plans — The Sienna at Cinco Ranch is now going to be called The Solana at Cinco Ranch. ‘There was a little bit of confusion,’ says Karen Thompson, a spokeswoman for the development firm. ‘They wanted to have something that was going to be unique to their property.'” [Houston Business Journal]
In this episode: four decade-old houses in New Territory, all within walking distance of . . . each other! Each home has distinctive touches! And they’re all open for your visit this weekend!
Location: 1743 Heddon Falls Dr.
Details: 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths; 2,769 sq. ft.
Price: $290,000
The Scoop: 1998 brick 2-story home with slightly winding path and two 10-year-old live oak trees in front. Double-height arched brick entry. Cathedral ceiling in Family Room. Hardwood floors downstairs, new carpet up. Breakfast Room has new light fixture. Pool and spa in back. On the market since mid-August.
Open House: Sunday, 1-4 pm
More New Territory options as the tour continues . . .
THE RIDE-FOR-LESS-THAN-A-GRAND PARKWAY “Fort Bend County officials Oct. 14 signed off on a joint resolution with numerous government entities to establish a set of terms and conditions to build the Grand Parkway as a toll road. . . . The agreement stipulates the scope of work, initial toll rate and methods to increase toll rates as the Grand Parkway, also known as Texas 99, is constructed as a 180-mile road looping around Houston. Under the terms, the project will be a tolled, two- to six-lane road with overpasses at major intersections and direct connectors at interchanges with other major thoroughfares.” [Houston Chronicle]
MOVING THE KATY PRAIRIE, ONE CLUMP AT A TIME Threatened patch of prairie? Shovels to the rescue! “The 90-acre patch at Saums and Greenhouse roads north of I-10 is a subtly spectacular example of what the dwindling Katy Prairie looked like before development spread west out of Harris County. Sometime later this fall, construction on the extension of Greenhouse Road, plus a detention pond, will start there. Folks in straw hats, with shovels, buckets and bug spray, spent several mornings digging up clumps of this mature prairie for transplanting to other sites. . . . Digging up clumps of little blue stem, rattlesnake master and bee blossom gives prairie gardens a jump start they couldn’t get from seeds – and seeds are hard to come by.” [Inside Fort Bend]
The contested case hearing for the proposed expansion of the Blue Ridge Landfill on the western edge of Shadow Creek Ranch has been postponed — to October or November at the earliest — reports Natalie Torentinos in the Journal of Pearland. But the the buzzards are already circling:
Like passing dark clouds, incomparable and scary odors have traveled through Jamie Lee’s neighborhood in Shadow Creek Ranch, the smell seeping through the garage, laundry, even the water faucet. “This morning at 8 a.m. I left to take my daughters to school, and I could barely breathe outside,” Lee said. “It was nauseating.” . . .
Additional issues are geology and drainage –regarding contaminated groundwater and increased flooding, respectively. The landfill is attracting scavenger animals such as vultures, seagulls and rodents. [Attorney Richard] Morrison showed pictures taken of buzzards perching on the roofs of several homes, located in Green Valley Estates north of the landfill.
Allied Waste wants its pile of trash to expand to 784 acres and reach a height of 170 feet. Current restrictions limit the landfill to 302 acres and 60 feet.
- Landfill odor causing a stink [The Journal of Pearland, via HAIF]
- Hurricane Detection System To Be Blocked by 170-Foot-High Pile of Garbage [Swamplot]
Photo of Shadow Creek Ranch: Flickr user Sean Brady [license]
The Willowisp Country Club is being transformed — from not-loved-enough golf course . . . to tilt-wall paradise! First, the clubhouse was clubbed. Then somebody probably had to go around and remove all those holes. Now the first three buildings of Trammell Crow’s new 168-acre Lakeview Business Park are under construction, reports Amy Wolff Sorter in Globe St. They’ll be complete next year, and total 240,000 sq. ft.
Whether the remainder of the park goes spec, build to suit or a combination of both depends on the market. “We’re offering the buildings for sale or for lease, which is a little different from our typical program,” says James Casey, TCC’s managing director in Houston. TCC’s more traditional MO is to keep and lease what it builds.
“This method offers us greater flexibility since we have a lot of land for the business park,” Casey tells GlobeSt.com. “We’d like to get this park developed as quickly as we can and think offering these for sale will accelerate velocity of bringing users to the park.”
After the jump: a site plan, plus public-transit-friendly views of the first three buildings!
PROPERTY TAX PROTESTS: DIFFERENT COUNTIES, DIFFERENT RULES Bring up the number of foreclosures and the amount of time properties have been sitting on the market in your neighborhood when you protest your property taxes, and the Harris County Appraisal District will take that evidence into account. But the Fort Bend County Appraisal District won’t. [Houston Press]
Greatwood. Where the builder floor-plan numbers are still fresh, and the sellers are eager to exit their mortgages. Stop by for a visit this weekend — maybe you can help! Here’s our tour of 7 Greatwood homes:
Location: 6614 High Knoll Dr., Sugarland
Details: 4 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths; 2,185 sq. ft.
Price: $174,549
The Scoop: 1992 brick 2-story by Ryland Homes in Greatwood Knoll. Tile floors in Entry, Kitchen, and Breakfast Area; carpet everywhere else. Covered back patio with built-in gas grill. Listed since the beginning of May; price cut more than $14K.
Open House: Sunday, 2-6 pm
The tour continues below . . .
Minute Maid is moving to Sugar Land. The Minute Maid Building near the Galleria has been sold.
Should we expect added sweeteners in our O.J.?
Cameron Management, Wachovia Bank and a group of local investors recently purchased the 351,000-square-foot office building at 2000 St. James Place for an undisclosed amount.
Minute Maid, a Houston-based division of Atlanta-based Coca-Cola, will lease back 150,000 square feet of space until its new home is ready in late 2008. Coca-Cola is negotiating a lease for 120,000 square feet in an office building that Planned Community Developers Ltd. began constructing last July in Sugar Land Town Square at U.S. Highway 59 and State Highway 6.
Why not . . . Pearland? Probably less appealing.
And what will happen to the empty building on St. James after the juice is gone?
In preparation for Minute Maid’s move-out, Cameron is marketing the 12-story building, located between Westheimer and San Felipe, as the largest block of contiguous office space in the Galleria area.
Sweet.
- Coca-Cola sells Minute Maid Building [Houston Business Journal]
- Cameron, Coca-Cola Bless 350,899-SF Leaseback [Globe St.]
Residents of Shadow Creek Ranch now have some unlikely allies in their fight to prevent an adjacent landfill from expanding into their, uh . . . airspace: TV weathermen.
That’s right: the real problem with Allied Waste wanting to expand its Blue Ridge landfill in Fresno from 302 to 784 acres—and increase its allowable maximum height from 58 to 170 feet—isn’t any toxic stench that might upset nearby residents, but the fact that it will block your TV newspeople from scaring you to death with alarming reports of giant hurricanes sneaking up on Houston from the Gulf.
That one-and-a-quarter-square-mile, 16-story tower of waste will block the Doppler radar installations of Channels 11, 13, and 26, which are located a few miles to the northwest. Sounds kinda picky, huh?
It may be too late for the weathermen to help new residents of the “#1 selling master-planned community in the Houston-Pearland Metroplex” stop their already smelly neighbor, since Fort Bend County and Missouri City have signed agreements not to oppose landfill-expansion plans. And TCEQ has already given its go-ahead to the giant heap of trash.
Seems it’s a little easier for developers to build towers outside Beltway 8—and you can build with cheaper materials, too.
Many residents of neighborhoods surrounding the landfill, such as Shadow Creek Ranch and Fresno, say what’s at stake for them is maintaining the value of their homes or their ability to obtain clean drinking water, and to maintain an acceptable quality of life in the face of what some believe will become at best a stinking nuisance.
. . . Allied has acknowledged, that in November 2005 a “statistically significant exceedance of barium was detected at the landfill.” The metallic element can act as a powerful nerve poison.
Detection of barium amounts to evidence the landfill already is leaking, [Environmental Attorney Richard] Morrison said in comments to TCEQ, and may threaten the drinking water supply in Fresno. He said more than 80 water wells are located within a mile of the proposed landfill expansion.
Allied Project Development Manager Gary McCuistion has stated that the company is “very confident†the increased presence of barium represents a naturally occurring event. [emphasis added]
After the jump, an aerial photo from the Shadow Creek Ranch website showing that pinkish, naturally occurring growth just across Almeda.
