12/05/17 11:30am

H-E-B is making a bright red appearance in a leasing brochure for The Market at Harper’s Preserve, a proposed shopping center that would go up along the entrance to the mostly-residential Harper’s Preserve development off Highway 242, 2 miles east of I-45. The site plan at top shows the supermarket anchoring a 28-acre retail area that would occupy the northeast corner of the partly-built, 800-acre community. Also included in the image: 2 buildings marked as banks, 2 as fast food, a gym, gas station, and 5 other structures.

A spokesperson for H-E-B said, “At this time it is premature for H-E-B to comment on specific plans for this parcel of land. However, we can share that we are excited about the prospect of building a new store to serve the growing Conroe community.” The site plan below shows one neighborhood of Harper’s Preserve called East Village, as well as the location of the shopping center, labeled “Mixed Use” at the top right corner:

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East of The Woodlands
01/20/17 1:00pm

GROUP PETITIONS FOR 13-COUNTY FLOOD PLANNING Find Your Watershed map, 2016A group called Citizen Solutions to Flooding — not to be confused with the Residents Against Flooding group currently suing the city and TIRZ 17, though containing some of the same members — is circulating a petition calling for a region-wide plan to address man-made flooding issues, and an agency to oversee it. The petition lists out some of the specific technical concerns that signers want incorporated into future flood planning, including a shift from floodplain-level thinking to whole-watershed rules. The petition also calls for coordination across all 13 counties in the Houston-Galveston Area Council region; Citizen and Residents member Ed Browne tells Ed Mayberry that “flooding doesn’t know any boundaries. I mean, water doesn’t care whether you’re in Harris County or Montgomery County or Fort Bend. Unless we address the whole watershed, one area or another is going to suffer.”  [Houston Public Media; previously on Swamplot] Watershed boundaries superimposed across Houston-area county boundaries: Galveston Bay Foundation and Houston Area Research Council’s Find Your Watershed map

06/30/16 2:45pm

WHAT MONTGOMERY COUNTY’S ROAD BOND REFERENDUM SCANDAL COULD COST Alan Sadler County Commissioners Court Building, 501 North Thompson, Fourth Floor, Conroe, Texas 77301In the wake of last week’s indictment of 2 Montgomery County commissioners, a county judge, and a political consultant married to the county treasurer, Judge Craig Doyal has been suspended without pay this week, though the involved commissioners are allowed to keep serving for now. If the group is convicted of violating the Texas Open Meetings Act (having allegedly held closed-door sessions about a $280 million county road bond referendum that voters approved last year), the commissioners may be removed as well, writes Andrew Schneider this morning. University of Houston political science professor Brandon Rottinghaus tells Schneider that the case, convictions or no, could also have broader implications for the county: “If the perception is that the government can’t handle it, then the voters may lose faith in the individuals involved, and [in the future] decide to simply not vote in favor of [these kinds of] bonds.” Schneider reports that upcoming funding needs for Montgomery county road projects are estimated at around $6 billion. [Houston Public Media] Photo of Alan B. Sadler Commissioners’ Court Building at 501 N. Thompson St. in Conroe: Montgomery County Attorney’s Office

01/05/16 12:45pm

Grand Parkway Segments H and I-1

The Army wants you to send the Corps of Engineers your thoughts on Segments H and I-1 of the Grand Parkway — if you can get them in order by February 1st. A public comment period, following some slight route revisions to the 37-miles-plus-a-bit-extra stretch of the in-progress outer-outer loop shown above in red, opened on December 30th. This next addition to Houston’s increasingly elaborate Saturn cosplay will run from 59 between Porter and New Caney through Montgomery, Liberty, and Chambers counties, skirting southeast of Dayton to link up with I-10 near Mont Belvieu.

Want to read up before having your say? The Final Environmental Impact Statement and associated documentation for the two segments, which collectively total 2,829 pages in pdf, have been helpfully split into 2 volumes for your perusing pleasure.

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Eastex Connections
09/30/14 2:45pm

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A seaside escape in Oak Ridge North? Despite its landlocked lot in Montgomery County, a sandy-colored 1968 property of brick and bric-a-brac has been beaching it, starting with the palm trees at curbside. For the shells and such, skip the trip to the coast and head inside . . .

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Seashore Envy
08/01/13 4:15pm

MONTGOMERY COUNTY MASTER-PLANNED COMMUNITY PICKED FOR MIDDLE-AGED DISTRICT Arizona homebuilder Taylor Morrison has just purchased 700 lots in the master-planned community Woodforest a few miles north of The Woodlands, and the Houston Business Journal reports that these lots — for which prices and plans are not yet available — in Johnson Development’s 3,000-acre community will be reserved for residents 55 and up. But this doesn’t appear to mean that Taylor Morrison, which is also building in Springwoods Village south of here, will be putting anyone out to pasture, writes Bayan Raji: “It’s committed to the homes fitting in.” [Houston Business Journal; previously on Swamplot] Photo of Riverbend in Woodforest: Woodforest

07/16/13 10:00am

Camp Strake, owned by the Houston arm of the Boy Scouts of America since the 1940s, is now under contract to Johnson Development, responsible for communities like Sienna Plantation in Missouri City and Imperial Sugar Land, to name just a couple. Nevertheless, Johnson Development declined to reveal any plans for the 2,083-acre lake-dotted property along the San Jacinto River and not quite 10 miles north of the new ExxonMobil headquarters. For what it’s worth, Jones Lang LaSalle did market the property to buyers as a master-planned community called Grand Lake Park, a plan for which you can see after the jump.

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04/11/13 12:30pm

Next month, reports Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon, construction’s supposed to start on 3 more segments of the Grand Parkway: That’s why F1, F2, and G on the map here are colored in that cautionary yellow. And where G ends? Not coincidentally, adds Dixon, at that future intersection with U.S. 59, planned to be completed by 2015, the 1400-acre master-planned Valley Ranch is getting ready to sprawl out.

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04/08/13 10:45am

GRAND TEXAS THEME PARK: FILLING THE ASTROWORLD VOID And this overgrown crossroads in the middle of somewhere near U.S. 59 and FM 242 is expected to be part of the Grand Texas Theme Park. Investors are in place, and the land between New Caney and Splendora in Montgomery County should be closed on this May, developer Monty Galland tells Click2Houston, when construction on the $200 million project — advertised to feature high-noon cowboy shootouts and tractor rides — will begin. And why all the fuss? “If there was an Astroworld,” says Galland, “we probably wouldn’t have even pursued this development. . . . The great thing about it is that we have enough land that we can create a lot of the elements Astroworld had, and it doesn’t detract from the other areas of the park. We’re not going to compete with Disneyland. We want to create an entertainment value that’s similar to going to the movies or going bowling.” [Click2Houston; previously on Swamplot] Photo: Grand Texas Theme Park, via Facebook

03/14/13 12:15pm

The cartoon horse speaks! Alas, Grand Texas Theme Park’s well-heeled mascot isn’t saying where you’ll join him. But at least the theme park’s website is now open, claiming that developer Monty Galland “has determined three different desired sites: Two are in Montgomery County, while the other is in Fort Bend County.” And there are now several new renderings of the park’s proposed “territories” with detailed descriptions of the Texas-themed activities and amenities to come.

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