What is it with the signage for Metro Realty Group properties? It’s attracted gentrifying Shepherd Jesus over by Center St.; and (as commenter Nord noted yesterday) this bit of snarky graffiti in the woods by White Oak Bayou at the Studewood overpass, just north of I-10.
Oh, and it looks like there’s more to say on the other side:
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Late Update: Looks like the seller dropped the asking price yesterday to below $1 million.
- 301 Studewood [LoopNet]
- Previously on Swamplot: All Others Must Pay Cash
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Jackass. If they want to preserve it, then buy it.
graffiti is just so childish. at least prospective buyers know that people do value that property and will notice it whatever it ends up being.
that’s true Joel.
I like this graffiti, though – made me : )
I despise graffiti as much as the next guy, but it’s hard to get riled up about somebody defacing a temporary plywood sign.
Benjy,
If you have no problem with the defacing of a plywood sign, maybe you can give Mr. Ezer $500 for a couple of new signs?? No big deal right?? It’s just $500
Especially when that plywood sign is used to market your business transaction. The idiot who put the graffiti (obviously not some punk kid but a deluded activist) has essentially told any potential buyers beware.
word.
How dare someone think that they have any stake in what happens to some of the green space in their neighborhood? Allow that kind of thinking to continue and you’ll wind up with communist plots like Central Park.
John, I think we’re all for free speech…and on some level or another, I think we all support the idea of public parks. Vandalism, on the other hand, not so much.
Who would build there anyway? Isn’t right on the bayou? Seems a great candidate for flooding.
The greater irony is that one sure way to ensure that things don’t go your way is to use violence or vandalism to make a point. Even if the City would’ve considered this parcel for a new park at one time, they surely won’t be following through on it now.
not defending vandalism. My comment was more a reaction to “If you want to preserve it, buy it yourself,” which is just doltish.
How is it stupid John? Please enlighten me!
Land is preserved all the time buy being purchased by private and public entities.
Did you know that the Houston Parks Board had now shifted gears from acquisition of park land along Brays to White Oak? A lot of land owners along that corridor are starting to assess their properties that are fairly difficult to develop such as this one and put it in position to be purchased by the city. If they can’t get any private purchasers interested in the properties, then they can realized that it will be best to unload it on the HPB.
MCoerver,
Yeah, I’m sure it’s a pain in the ass for Mr. Ezer, but it’s not like he can’t paint over the graffiti and have the sign nearly good as new for a lot less than $500. Let’s not blow this out of proportion. It’s a plywood sign, not the San Jacinto Monument.
Benjy,
You’re wrong.
I found it amusing personally, and fairly harmless. Though it’s hard to appreciate the art or ecological concerns it expresses when looking through the distorted lense of that which is the almighty dollar.
Why restore a 1920’s Rice Military single family home when you can clear the lot and build 3, four story stucco monstrosities to take it’s place? Replacing a middle class home, yard/backyard maybe even a garden with more couples bent on consipicuous, tacky trash fashion, pampered German cars, spoiled dogs, italian prams, and their oh so fashionable this season babies. Don’t even ask what the du rigeur is for jogging in the park this days. Oh yeah, could it be….. THE MONEY?
Only gentrifying Jesus would recommend you a new 4 story stucco monstrosity with an elevator (of course).
MCoerver,
Yeah, when you put it that way, I see your point.
Excuse me for not shedding a tear over Mr. Ezer’s sign.
Park or Strip Club? You make the call!!
Before this gets out of hand, please rest assured that all attempts have been made to the Houston Parks Board, Annise Parker, Bill White, Ed Gonzalez, Greater Houston Offroad Bike Association and the list goes on and on. I have been working for 2.5 years to make this a public-use site.
I urge “you people” to, instead of defacing property, get the facts first and please take this up with the “Parks and Woods” people you speak of. Make it happen.
Therefore, go at it:
*City of Houston*
-CouncilMember Ed Gonzalez – 832.393.3003
-Mayor Annise Parker – 713.837.0311
*Houston Parks Board*
-Exec. Director Roksan Okan-Vick – 713.942.8500
-Chairman Tom Bacon – 713.533.5860
-Whatever does happen with the site, I can ASSURE you that it will be in good taste and a benefit to this great City of ours….as long as I have anything to do with it. Feel free to email me with thoughts, suggestions….or with money!
-Now that I am done pursuing greenspace, I am leaning towards a nice place to sit on a deck and relax with a toddy, look at the skyline from the best angle imagineable. Perhaps walk down the bike trail in the AM, grab a cup of coffee and read my paper while once again, looking at the skyline from the best angle imagineable. Ohhhh there will be plenty of trees left on site since I will need a place to mount my hammock. How does that sound to “you people”??
jezer@houstonlandandhome.com
CM,
You’re a real prick aren’t you? Amusing to deface someone’s propperty that they spent their hard earned money on? Harmless? I bet if something cost you $500, you’d have to take a loan out..(I base my assertion that you don’t have two nickels to rub together, primarily on your repeated hatred of money and anyone who aspires to make some.)
How’s that Hope and Change working out for you chief?
Without sinking to your depths of insults, allow me to apologize to your sense of greed. I certainly hope your taking yourself far too seriously and your concern for a faceless coporate developers sign, if you’re not on the payroll already, you should be! There are more important things than money, and somehow I doubt that developers can ill afford to put up another sign. The sign to me is worse than the grafitti in terms of blight. I’ll just leave you to wallow with your Ed Hardy shirts and your exceptionally distasteful conspicuous consumption.
CM,
I take it from your email that you don’t have much in the way of responsibility holding you down. You probably don’t own a home, don’t hold a job, don’t own a car, etc. Nothing wrong with that, but it explains your demeanor and your resentment of people who own things and aspire to material possessions. You are entitled to your opinions, no doubt, but I’m also entitled to pronounce you ignorant of the way the real world works. And, that’s just what I’m doing…right now.
I saw the For Sale sign months ago and wondered about the property. How big is it? How do you access it? It seems like one of those parcels that gets skipped over because it doesn’t fit the strip mall land use mentality. Why couldn’t it be something amazing? I imagined an ice house tucked in the trees along the bayou with incredible views of downtown. Maybe some mixed use with residential above. I sure hope someone with vision buys it!
CM,
WOW, I’m pretty liberal but you really believe in Mark’s and Chomsky, don’t you? This is the viewpoint you get when you let renters dictate your preservationist policy; which I truely believe is the majority of the preservationists in the Heights.
As for that lot, you have to realize that it is in the floodway of White Oak Bayou and it will be VERY difficult and expensive to develop it. Engineering and detention alone will cost many tens of thousands of dollars. Not to mention that the access to it is horrible. Regardless of that it’s someones PRIVATE PROPERTY and who are you to dictate what he does with it? If you want it to stay greenland BUY IT YOURSELF! YOU can pay the $4,000 in taxes and $5,000 for insurance every year! I’m so tired of people unwilling to offer anything but their big ideas when it comes to the greater good! Step up and put your money down!
One can assume anything you would like, but like your glib assessment of my net worth you would quite wrong. Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing to do. I also have a sneaking suspicion you wouldn’t be person enough to call me a prick in person either. So captain passive aggressive, whilst you lament what amounts to virtually nothing but a 2 second amusement to passing motorists, I’ll take a moment to enjoy life and not be so pointlessly monetarily driven as you seem to be.
I thought I was being quite blatantly agressive, just as you were by praising the defacing of private propery. I assume you don’t own anything becuase if you did you wouldn’t be so happy about someone damaging the propery of another person. Unless you are a sociopath which makes sense from you apparent disregard for basic human decency. If I had seen them defacing that sign I can assure you that I would not have driven by with a smug little smirk, I would have done the decent thing and stopped them, and I would gladly stand in your face and call you a prick because it’s the right thing to do.
Now, if you are such a man, woman or none of the above, with the means too you should step up and put your money where your convictions are, and I will be right there to applaud you. Until you do that keep your nose out of my (or any property owners) property rights and pocketbook,
Nothing wrong with that, but it explains your demeanor and your resentment of people who own things and aspire to material possessions…
___________________________
But the same token, some go to the other extreme. “I have, therefore I am…” Usually pretentious. And sometimes just outright obnoxious.
As for parks, the city and the county should have long ago been buying up parcels like this and maintaining a more natural method of “flood control” instead of allowing mountains of concrete to be built along our bayous.
Maybe during the next Allison the city and the county will finally get the message.
kjb434- The assumption that personal ownership of a plot of land trumps everything, and that failure to personally own a plot of land prevents a person from having a stake in what happens in a community, is dumb.
There’s no deeper analysis of the situation or defense of graffiti in that observation; “if you want that then buy it” is a brain fart posing as a complete thought. And no offense – the best of us pop out with things like that on a regular basis.
My thoughts about reasonable ways to preserve green space in city neighborhoods are probably not far off from your own, though – I’m just not willing to get so riled up about a frustrated person doing something stupid like defacing a sign
“if you want that then buy it†is a brain fart posing as a complete thought
No it’s not. You are ignorant. Property rights is what this country was built on. If this is going to be a park or greenspace then someone has to buy it if that’s not what the owner wants. It can be you or it can be the city. If you take that right away we no longer have freedom in this country. Where have you been all your life that you do not understand this concept? Ar you from the USA?
This immature level of personal attack is the reason I no longer regularly read Swamplot. Gus used to have a fun place. Yeah, we were snarky in our comments (especially on the old NGG), but it seldom devolved into personal attacks and call-outs.
Swamplot is now kjb434 (do you constantly monitor an RSS feed so you can always be first commenter?) tossing out a typically incendiary topic comment, then people takes sides and bitch. That’s too bad, like I said, this used to be fun.
Brad, what was incendiary about my comment?
I called a person who committed graffiti a jackass and stated that if they bought property it could forever be preserved.
If that’s incendiary, you have some thin skin.
Petulant children.
A wise man/woman knows both extremes and chooses neither. Allow me to point out the mountain that was formerly a molehill..
Couple facts, nothing worthy of dispute. In a city of 3 million+ there will be grafitti. Some are gang tags, some are bored kids, some are weird actvist statements on the side of the waugh bridge, and some even have some social relevance or message ie. “give up”. Given the tendency to be a nuissance, and or a good sign of crime in the area, someone taking a fairly useless sign (most real estate professionals have the internet) and made a fairly good comment on what should be done with the land (albeit clearly wishful thinking). I doubt anyone would dispute additional park land wouldn’t be a bad thing.
But if that bothers you so darn much, I only wonder what you would do when the neighbor’s dog deficates in your yard?
I run right over those steamy piles of waste with my lawn mower. They don’t bother me one bit…
CM,
I don’t think you know much about commercial real estate. It’s not as web based as residential real estate, at least as far as sales go. Chances are that the opportunity to buy this tract would largely go unnoticed but for this sign. Point being the sign isn’t useless.
Your comment re: dog crap seems to be going in a different direction, though I’m not really sure where. People who let their dogs violate their neighbor’s yard aren’t really vandals, just inconsiderate. In any event, crap is much easier and costs nothing to clean up. The owner of the sign is faced with a bill to get the sign repainted.
Bottom line is this is vandalism. No way to rationalize it. People are free to air whatever political sentiments they want, but they cannot do it at the expense of unwilling participants.
As a balanced and valid point, I would agree. It is vandalism, it will cost someone money, but as a whole and compared to the “real” problems and issues Houston’s facing it’s fairly minor. Certainly better than a string of 4 letter bombs, or a gang tag. No I’m certainly not in real estate, so correct I’m not sure how would go about evaluating and puchasing property, though it does seem rather 20th century to leave a sign as your only means of sale/intent. I would have figured technology would have caught up with their industry by now, but perhaps being in the technology field myself I am jaded by it’s wide aceptance in most industries. I personally find the staggering drunks aimlessly wandering the washington corridor late weekend nights are far more of a nuissance than say a slightly altered real estate sign. I’m still baffled why people would make such a big deal out of that, surely it happens daily, and almost certainly the intent/message/meaning is likely far more devious than someone asking for more park space.
More than happy to add some balance around here, even if I vere into liberal territory. I’ll gladly refute your conservative rhetoric, or agree with it depending on the issue. I’ve found this place to be a good read, usually fairly intelligent, but also chock full of self righteous right wing nuts, and I’m sure the other end of the spectrum is represented too.
About the Real E-state of things on Swamplot lately:
As to the wingnuts, there are always going to be one or two perpetually pessimistic posters like this on every board who like to roll peoples eyes because they have nothing better to do. We all know who they are without mentioning names or communist initials. I generally refrain from feeding their egos.
The best thing a site can do for an improvement is just add an “ignore posts from” button. Then the people who check-in every 30 seconds just to be the first to gripe on a topic can continue to do what they do from their armchairs without disturbing anyone else.
Think of it like a site-specific neighborhood watch program. You could add userIDs to the list and instantly banish them to the graffiti-free park of their own little world…or at least a nice half-acre lot with white picket fence where they could be happy, and pretend that they have huge fan base out in cyber-world.
The dichotomy of opinions expressed on this thread should be ample proof that there is plenty of representation of liberal thinking posters to offset any conservative posters. Stooping to name calling however is rarely appreciated in an adult discussion.
That being said, I am of the opinion that regardless of who owns what piece of property, sign, whatever, vandalizing it with graffiti is still vandalizing someone’s private (or public) property. To go one further, perpetrators of this type of behavior would perhaps find it ironic if they were shot with paint balls whenever caught in the act defacing property. What goes around comes around.
Just reading this post & comments now, and looked up 301 Studewood on HCAD. Looks like the Parks Board picked it up after all, in late December. Looking at the appraisal jumping from $35k in 2007 to $200k+ the next year and eventually well north of $1M…wow.
Tried to get Parks Board to purchase for years but they wouldnt go above $200k. They upped their offer to $600k in September of 2010, while property was under contract with restaurant group out of Austin which has 12 operating establishments in Texas.
Up against about the 8th round of foreclosure with a hard money lender who wasnt satisfied with his usurious rates of 21%+ per annum over three years and under pressure, lender ended up taking the property – taking a parks board offer and walking away with anothher $60k+ on top. Restaurant group pissed, owner still picking up pieces/dealing with lawsuits that should have been avoided. Restaurant group needed 30 more days, Parks would have taken 60. Lender would give no more time r for either.
Should have filed for bankruptcy to stall the foreclosure and let deal transact but family was on last leg….after paying about $60-75k over 9 months to avoid repeated postings for foreclosure, as well as the ridiculous interest rates over the previous two years.
Lender also decided against paying the commission he promised for bringing the Parks Board deal. Real swell guy.
My apologies for the eyesore signs, maybe I will go reface them and at least get free advertising out of the deal.
Parks Board has no plans yet but turned down two offers in January from a Developer with backing out of the Mayors office. Demonstration housing. First offer they turned down was $800k, not sure about second offer but I can confirm it was turned down as well.
In regards to Parks, I had made some traction with GHORBA for an off-road bike park like they have in Austin, The topography, etc. would be rather perfect for that. Not sure where everyone is on the deal but I dont believe it is Parks highest priority at the moment. I will check in with everyone and let you know.
It makes me angry to see another Realtor disclose private information about a transaction that he learned by being the listing agent. I am sorry you feel as if you got screwed on the deal, but where are your ethics? If you had all these people on the line interested in the property, why couldn’t you close any of them? I just had to deal with a former listing agent who disclosed private information to her buyer she had learned while listing the property. Let’s just say she will never try that again and her buyer is paying over list!!!!
Broker/Owner. I assure you that I am ethical and I understand your sentiment.