SPORTS AND CONVENTION CORP.: WE HAVE WAYS TO MAKE YOU LIKE OUR ASTRODOME PLAN 
Unlike that rather inadequately advertised call for private bids about what to do with the Astrodome, the Harris County Sports and Convention Corp. appears to be taking very public pains before the November bond referendum to make sure everyone knows about its $217 million plan to slim down and spruce up the dingy behemoth into a convention center and event space. KUHF reports that the HCSCC has agreed to form a committee charged with getting the word out and appealing to voters that its plan is the best plan. Judge Ed Emmett explains: “Most voters have an opinion — either they want to save the Dome or they don’t want to save the Dome. And those that are leaning towards saving the Dome, have to be convinced that this is a purpose that makes sense.” [KUHF; previously on Swamplot] Rendering of New Dome Experience: HCSCC
Sign up for the Newsletter
Tag: Proposed Developments
So much for that walkable plaza with bike stations and jugglers and food trucks: It appears that an office building is going to go up instead on this underused triangular slice o’ land along Washington Ave. The variance is to reduce the setback from 25 ft. to 5 ft. in order to make room for parking and a 3,517-sq.-ft. office building. The 0.26-acre triangle is bound by Henderson, White, Union, and Washington. A site plan included in the variance request shows that the office would go up on the Henderson side, across the street from Liberty Station.
A REAL BIG DATA CENTER COMING TO NORTHWEST HOUSTON 
Real Estate Bisnow’s Catie Dixon reports that CyrusOne is going to add 2 more buildings early next year to its 45-acre data-dealing-with campus in Westbranch near the Beltway: “The new developments include a 600k SF data center with 100 megawatt capacity and a 200k SF Class-A office” designed by Kirksey and depicted in the rendering shown here. Apparently, adds Dixon, the new data center, which will support primarily the oil and gas industries, will be nothing to sneeze at: “[It] will be one of the largest in the country, and [CyrusOne CEO Kevin Timmons] says it should sate demand in Houston for years to come.” [Real Estate Bisnow] Rendering: Kirksey Architecture
This wobbly 108-year-old house in Midtown, remodeled in 1999, might be fixed up one more time and converted into a bar. Or it might be demolished to make room for something new, says the reader who sends this photo and word of a recently secured TABC license for the so-called Sterling House here at 3015 Bagby St., just 1 block north of Elgin. The 1905 2,850-sq.-ft. house, sitting on a 4,918-sq.-ft. lot at the corner of Bagby and Rosalie, changed hands back in 2009, but it appears to have been waiting around for something to happen since then.
THIS OK? GREYSTAR CHECKS IN WITH WOODLAND HEIGHTS NEIGHBORS ABOUT SKYLANE REPLACEMENT 
Motivated to avoid some of the same blowback that developers of the Ashby Highrise, Morrison Heights condos and apartments, and 17-story San Felipe office building have received from sign-making neighbors, Greystar has been busy meeting with folks in Woodland Heights to discuss Elan Heights, the 8-story, 276-unit complex that will be replacing the ’60s Skylane on Taylor St. And what are those neighbors worried about? The usual suspects, writes the Houston Chronicle’s Erin Mulvaney: “. . . [S]pecifics of entry and exit at certain streets, plans for sidewalks, availability of bicycle parking, sewage and the preservation of existing oak trees . . . [and] the implications of the traffic analysis required by the city.” A rep explains why Greystar’s doing what it’s doing: “People more than anything else want to be informed and know what’s happening in their community. . . . The reality is that we are not required to do that. . . . We do it because we want to be good neighbors.” Greystar says it will close on the property next month, and the demo of the Skylane will follow in early 2014. [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Rendering: Meeks + Partners
A trio of retailers have inked their deals to take up most of the space in that slow-to-develop shopping center along Yale St. on the 8-acre site sold and vacated earlier this year by San Jacinto Stone. The Houston Chronicle reports that LA Fitness, Guitar Center, and Sprouts Farmers Market have all signed leases here. This will be the first Sprouts location inside the Loop. There remains about 22,000 sq. ft. for lease in the proposed 150,000-sq.-ft. shopping center squeezed between the Washington Heights Walmart and the new I-10 feeder roads. Construction on the center could begin in the next few months.
- Developing Smart Opportunities for Retail [Ponderosa Land Development]
- Retailers sign up for center near Heights [Houston Chronicle ($)]
- Retailers in upcoming Heights shopping center revealed [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: Look What’s Sprouting on Westheimer and Kirkwood, San Jacinto Stone To Reopen at Wholesale Gardens in Bellaire, The End of the San Jacinto Stone Age, Sprouts Far Out, Shops Replacing San Jacinto Stone, Just North of the South-of-the-Heights Walmart, Look Out for Sprouts
Rendering: Ponderosa Land Development
Hines and Ziegler Cooper have presented this drawing (and several maps and site plans) to the Historical Commission in their bid to build a 33-story residential tower on the Downtown block bound by Preston, Prairie, Main, and Travis, catty-corner from Market Square Park. Unfortunately, there’s no image available of the whole thing. (You’ll have to extrapolate upward, as they say.) But the application materials for a Certificate of Appropriateness to build in the Main Street Market Square historic district show that the once-rumored tower would comprise 25 stories and 289 residential units atop a 7-level podium parking garage atop 1 level of retail on the street.
That parking garage would be accessed from Travis St., right next to Frank’s Pizza and the former Cabo spot. (Which will become El Big Bad soon enough.) The tower, as drawn, appears to inch toward this block’s other buildings: There’s Georgia’s Market in the old Byrd’s Department Store on the corner, the 1924 Alfred C. Finn-designed State National Bank Building and the 1925 Public National Bank Building, all of which face Main St.
After the jump, you can see a site plan:
Uchi and Sushi Raku architect Michael Hsu is behind these designs for Hunky Dory, the open-air bar and restaurant to be built over the next year in the Heights. Located just about 3 blocks north of the very recently proposed Heights Bier Garden at the old Longhorn Motor Company dealership, the new all-good hangout will also be replacing a used-car lot — Salmex Auto & Trucks at 1819 N. Shepherd, between 18th and 19th St. Alison Cook reports that Hunky Dory — with a courtyard designed around an 85-year-old live oak — is a collaboration among Down House and D&T Drive Inn owner Chris Cusack, former Feast chef Richard Knight, and current Down House chef Benjy Mason.
CHUNK OF CHANGE DELAYS DEER PARK PRAIRIE DEADLINE 
Apparently, the owner of that would-be-sold-and-developed 53-acre patch of prairie in Deer Park has been persuaded to give the Bayou Land Conservancy 3 more weeks to come up with the rest of the money to buy it. A $2 million donation from Terry Hershey helped the conservancy bring in $3.2 million in less than a week; still, $800,000 more is needed before Sept. 10, or the owner will sell to a homebuilder planning a subdivision. If it can close on the prairie, the conservancy says it “will place a conservation easement over the property to permanently protect the land — which would disallow the 250 houses currently planned for the acreage and any other future development.” [Bayou Land Conservancy; previously on Swamplot] Image: Bayou Park Conservancy
A reader sends this photo of the long-time Longhorn Motor Company property at the corner of N. Shepherd and W. 15th St. in the Heights. Longhorn, writes the reader, “recently got rid of all its cars and went on the market. A couple of weeks ago an application to TABC turned up. I tried to do research and found nothing on it but the prospect of a nice little beer joint on that stretch of North Shepherd is pretty exciting.” County records show that the 1.15-acre property changed hands in June. That TABC sign the reader mentions is dated July 2; it names “Heights Bier Garden” as the applicant here at 1433 N. Shepherd.
Photo: Rachelle Varnon
Seems the concerned neighbors around that 17-story office building that Hines is considering building on San Felipe aren’t worried only about traffic. This map, created by a member of the recently formed nonprofit East San Felipe Association — which says it is committed to supporting “reasonable development” in this area around S. Shepherd, Kirby, and San Felipe — suggests another threat to the ’hood: copycatting.
Clearly speculative, the map takes pains to show those sites where other unreasonable highrises could pop up in response to the precedent that Hines is setting with 2229 San Felipe. On S. Shepherd, for ex., you might see the Red Lion Pub forgo its street-level scale, or Petco abandon the confines of its big box. (But wouldn’t that long elevator ride down give you some quality time to bond with your recently adopted pup?) If this map is to be trusted, it seems like it would be only a matter of time before the bug spreads north and Chipotle throws up a tower of burritos. The last thing the neighbors want, says just one of the messages on that oppositional website that they set up, is for this residential area to become “the next Greenway Plaza.”
- What is it? [Stop the San Felipe Skyscraper]
- A New Boutique Office Address for the River Oaks Community [2229 San Felipe]
- Previously on Swamplot: Hines Develops Website To Explain 17-Story San Felipe Development, “Stop†Signs Oppose 17-Story Hines Office Building on San Felipe, A Look Around San Felipe at the Randall Davis Condos and Planned Hines Office Building Site, Hines Plans a Shiny New 18-Story Office Building Across San Felipe from River Oaks
Image: Swamplot inbox
Now that Cafe Adobe is coming down on the corner of Westheimer and S. Shepherd, Hines says it is going to start building this apartment complex later this month. A Hines rep tells Swamplot that this rendering of the so-called 21 Eleven at — wait for it — 2111 Westheimer is current — though it doesn’t appear to be all that different from the one published back in April that Hines said wasn’t. At any rate, the complex is planned to hold 215 units in 5 stories that will sit atop 2 levels of “podium parking.” And no ground-floor retail.
- Hines breaks ground on next Houston multifamily project [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: Daily Demolition Report: Adobe Creative Cloud, Westheimer Rd. Cafe Adobe Closing on Mother’s Day, Hines Replacing Cafe Adobe With Apartment Building — Just Not This One
Rendering: Hines
Yesterday, a HAIF user posted this rendering of what appears to be that twisty 42-story apartment tower Tema Development is considering building right next to its Parklane condos on Hermann Dr. This rendering of the “Helix Tower” sure matches the description provided by the Swamplot reader who saw the plans for the Corgan-designed highrise last week at a Museum Park neighborhood association meeting.
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.”
The Bayou Land Conservancy is really pushing to raise $4 million in the next week or so in order to outbid a homebuilder on a 50-acre patch of prairie in Deer Park. The video above is part of what the Houston Chronicle’s Lisa Gray describes as a “Hail Mary pass” to raise the money before August 20.
The sought-after patch is among the last 1 percent of the Gulf Coast’s original prairie, reports Gray. The conservancy has been attempting to raise the money to buy it for the past year and a half — an attempt that’s now being hastened by a recent $4.25-million offer from a developer with plans for a 201-home subdivision on the land near Spencer Hwy. and Luella Ave.
And what would the conservancy prefer for the prairie? Here’s Gray:
The prairie’s fans imagine a visitor’s center fashioned from a next-door ranch house. They imagine busloads of visiting schoolkids. They imagine research into the still-mysterious workings of the prairie biome. They imagine harvesting native seed, to be used in eco-conscious plantings in the area. They imagine Battle of San Jacinto re-enactments more realistic than those that take place at the battlefield itself.
- Deadline August 20! [Save College Park Prairie]
- Donate Now To Save Deer Park Prairie [Bayou Land Conservancy]
- The clock is ticking for prairie [Houston Chronicle ($)]
Video: Bayou Land Conservancy