Awards

The “Only in Houston” Award: The Official Nominees

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Note: Voting for the Swampies has ended. See the bottom of this post (above the comments) for a link to the results!

We have the slate! The official nominees for the “Only in Houston” Award, the 6th category in the Swamplot Awards for Houston Real Estate, are in!

Swamplot needs your vote! You can add it in a comment at the bottom of this post, or send it privately to this site’s super-top-secret email address. You can read more about the voting rules here. If you want to swing the voting toward your favorite candidate, you can start a virtual campaign by sending out emails or posting about the awards on your blog or on forums. The polls close at midnight on December 28th.

The official nominees for the “Only in Houston” Award are . . .

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1. The Marketing of 6040 Glencove St., Glen Cove. “Buy this beautiful 1.35-acre property near Memorial Park now and we’ll throw in this Midcentury Modern home by Talbott Wilson — absolutely free!” County Judge candidate David Mincberg did buy the property last spring, but as of early December land and home have come back on the market — with a revised sales pitch.

2. The Roller Coaster Next Door, Kemah. When Coy and Carol Killion refused to sell him their home on the Kemah Boardwalk, Landry’s President Tilman Fertitta went ahead and built the 96-ft.-tall Boardwalk Bullet roller coaster a few dozen feet away.

3. Rock the Bayou. “Multi-day heavy metal festival on the grounds of Astroworld. The only known use of that site since Astroworld’s demise.” Who needs a theme park? The heavy metal is in the dirt.

4. The Ongoing Ashby Highrise Melee, Boulevard Oaks. “Every town’s got its development fights, but a few aspects make this story seem improbable almost anywhere else: The sudden appearance of seemingly unstoppable plans for a highrise development next to a wealthy and central residential neighborhood of mostly single-family homes; the long wait while the city tried to come up with new development rules to stop or alter it; the single loading-dock regulation that’s apparently the only thing preventing this project from going forward. It doesn’t matter whether you’re for it or against it: It’s a Houston thing.”

5. The Abandonment of Bolsover St., Rice Village. “Houston city streets for sale! City Council votes to sell a street in a busy commercial district to a developer for $1.5 million plus promises to build a pretty plaza and 40 street parking spaces. Now the Sonoma is toast, and we’ll be able to figure out how well that investment did by 2016.”

6. Grand Parkway Homes, Lakes of Avalon Village. “Back in the good old days of just a few months ago, even those brand-new Lennar and J. Patrick homes built directly in the path of the Grand Parkway in Spring were selling like hotcakes!”

So many choices! Which of these nominees should win the “Only in Houston” Award?

Update: The winners have been announced!

Photos: HAR (6040 Glencove St.); Lou Minatti (Roller Coaster house); Rock the Bayou (stage on Astroworld site); Miya Shay (Bolsover St.); HAR (Lakes of Avalon Village)
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