Here are some new renderings of the spaces between the buildings on the ExxonMobil campus under construction in Springwoods Village. The Houston Business Journal’s Shaina Zucker reports that the 20 or so office buildings that will constitute the 385-acre campus will be organized around “a central three-acre commons” much like the one, designed by Houston firm PDR, shown here. The commons, explains Zucker, is “modeled after great public squares found in Europe and the U.S.”
Here’s a pair of renderings of 4 new townhomes about to be built in the Fourth Ward. The site is 2 blocks south of W. Gray, near those side-by-side lots where that 5-story apartment complex Dolce Living has been proposed to go in beside a row of vacant shotgun houses.
If you look closely at these renderings, you can see at least one more remnant of the past: The remains of the brick storefront of a dry cleaner’s that opened here on the corner of Genesee and W. Webster in the 1930s; it appears that what was the store’s main entrance has been incorporated into the design and widened into a 1-car garage. Says Tim Cisneros, whose firm worked on the townhomes: “[The storefront is] being left as a part of the neighborhood ‘commercial archeology.’”
Renderings: Cisneros Design Studio
ENERGY CORRIDOR TO GET ‘BOTH BRICK AND STUCCO’ ALEXAN COMPLEX 
More Alexan-brand apartments are going up, The Memorial Examiner reports. But unlike that pair of ’em planned for those 2 stacked lots in the Heights, this one beyond the Beltway will have almost 6.25 acres all to itself. Trammell Crow says it should have ready this spring the 4-story, 354-unit Alexan Enclave at 13411 Briar Forest Dr., just off Eldridge Pkwy. in the Energy Corridor. Worried that the complex will disrupt the stylistic unity of the area? Or that it might be built with strange, atypical materials? There’s no need, Trammell Crow explains: “The traditional, exterior facade, which will incorporate both brick and stucco, is in keeping with the architecture of the surrounding neighborhoods.” [Memorial Examiner; previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Trammell Crow Residential
Thanks to $2 million from Silver Eagle Distributors, which is also putting up that new beer dispensary in Pasadena, the Buffalo Bayou Partnership might to be able to afford to turn Eleanor Tinsley Park into something as purty as what you see in the rendering above. That means the existing “event meadow” down below there along Allen Pkwy. will be scooped out and rid of the volleyball court, playground equipment, picnic shelters, and some of the pine trees, then re-landscaped and rechristened the Bud Light Amphitheater; more parking and stairs will be introduced; and a new “Skyline Overlook” pavilion will be built and named in honor of Silver Eagle prez and CEO John Nau.
The dirty work began earlier this month, says the BBP, part of the overall project to install new swag like pedestrian bridges and remove invasive species, transforming the 2.3-mile stretch, BBP prez Anne Olson explained a few months ago to Free Press Houston, into an “11 acre urban prairie.”
Rendering: SWA Group
Here’s what’s going up on the west side of the Rice University campus. Construction began back in December on the 3-story, 53,000-sq.-ft. Anderson Clark building, just off University Blvd. and behind the football stadium, that will serve as the much-larger home for the Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies; plans describe 2 dozen new classrooms, conference space, an auditorium, and a terrace for events.
Check out some purty renderings of the finished building after the jump:
Here’s the latest rendering of the once-protested Parc Binz development that’s going up on the corner of Binz and Chenevert in Museum Park. Prime Property reports that this mixed-use building, designed by Energy Architecture, should be all ready by the end of the year. During construction, though, the scale of it seems to have shrunk: Originally proposed to stand 6 stories and have 75,000-sq.-ft. of office, retail, and medical space, Sarnoff sizes what is actually being built at 50,000 sq. ft., and this brighter new rendering shows only 5 floors.
You can compare it with the previous one — featuring a solitary fellow brooding in the gloaming out on the terrace — after the jump:
A new residence hall for men rehabbing from drug and alcohol addiction looks to be shaping up in Midtown. Designed by Roesler Architects, the 4-story, 26,000-sq.-ft. building will hold 64 efficiency units meant to house 2 men at a time; each unit, according Roesler, will have a microwave, refrigerator, built-in desk, and a coffee bar. There will also be what Roesler describes as a “Linear Courtyard” — a fenced-in landscaping feature, presumably — that will be accessible from the dayroom on the first floor. The new building is located at the corner of Alabama and San Jacinto, east of the Men’s Center headquarters across Main St. from the construction of Broadstone 3800, the 5-story apartment complex facing the light rail line on Main.
A reader sends this photo of the construction progress of that Regent Square-ish residential tower the Sovereign. The 21-story, 290-unit building designed by Ziegler Cooper is going up on West Dallas between Rosine and Rochow, where some of the old Allen House Apartments used to stand.
The North Montrose site is just around the corner from Dunlavy, where other dirt is being pushed around to make way for Regent Square. The Sovereign, contrary to its name, was originally planned by Boston developer GID to become one of the uses in that mixed-use spread, but the 2 projects are listed separately on the company website. After the jump, you can see the renderings of the Sovereign that Swamplot published last summer.
FEEDING NEW APARTMENTS TO THE GRAND PKWY. FEEDER 
Austin developers Oden Hughes say that they have been eager to build in Houston, but the company’s first project here has come only as far east as Katy: A 354-unit apartment complex is going up a few miles east of Katy Mills Mall on 14 acres at the southwest corner of Kingsland Blvd. and the southbound Grand Pkwy. feeder. The Rancher reports that rent here at the so-called Parkside Grand Parkway will range between $850 and $1,655 a month for the complex planned to include 2 pools, a fitness center, and “an air-conditioned dog washing station.” [The Rancher] Rendering: Oden Hughes
Construction is well underway at the site of the torn-down Studewood Fiesta on the Village of the Heights. This updated (and softer) rendering shows the 4-story, 103-unit senior living facility as seen from near the intersection of 14th and Studewood; it will be bordered on the north by Algregg. A rep from developer Bridgewood Properties — which operates 3 similar facilities in Houston — says that the 1st floor will be devoted to a clinic for “memory care,” and the 2nd floor will include a fitness center, library, beauty salon, and assisted-living suites; the top 2 floors will be reserved for apartments, ranging from 1-bedroom, 524-sq.-ft. spaces to 2-bedroom, 753-sq.-ft. ones.
There’s more going on at U of H than that new McDonald’s, apparently: A reader sends these photos of many of the construction projects scattered across the campus. This photo shows the pylons of the still-unnamed bowl with a Downtown view that’s replacing Robertson Stadium, demolished back in December. And in the background of the photo you can see the new Cougar Place apartments. KUHF’s Jack Williams reports that the new stadium is already about a third done; more photos after the jump illustrate the below-grade playing field.
Correction: An earlier version of this story reported that the city would relocate its traffic operations to this building; that assertion is in error. The new Patterson St. building is replacing an older structure, and it will serve in addition to the primary traffic operation offices in the Public Works Building Downtown. The story has been corrected. Swamplot regrets the error.
Going up: This building at 2001 Patterson St. On the north side of I-10, the 40,000-sq.-ft. building designed by Kirksey will house the city’s traffic operations offices, warehouses, and sign- and signal-making shops. A smaller pavement-marking shop will be built here too. Fittingly, the buildings will stare across the freeway at David Adickes’s recently installed spelled-out declaration of Houston love.
It looks like these 4-story townhouses are filling out a bit here on the corner of E. 2nd and Heights Blvd., where in late April their stick-frame precursors fell over in a wind-aided collapse. Fortunately, no one was hurt, though the garage doors of several finished and already occupied neighboring units were damaged. Keystone Classic Homes is the builder of this 8-pack located just south of White Oak Bayou.
A reader sends photo of the construction progress of the replacement McDonald’s near the corner of Elgin and Cullen on the University of Houston campus. The McDonald’s that used to stand here was torn down in early June. A regional rep says that this new one should be ready by the time classes resume.
Photos: Thomas Heinold
Last week’s announcement by Chevron of the 50-story tower it plans to add to its blue-glass twins is just the latest development in the 77002. This map from the Downtown Management District shows projects that are recently completed, under construction, or in various states of planning and speculation. Those projects, denoted by purple and yellow on the map, include Skanska’s 34-story office tower that’s replacing the old Houston Club Building, Hines’s highrise on Main, the residential renovation of the Texaco Building, and the 5-story apartment complex near the under-construction SkyHouse apartment tower, among others. You can scroll through a complete legend for the map after the jump:
