Rice Design Alliance tour goers visit the partially completed 99K house. [Photo by Raj Mankad]
Headlines March 21 to 27
A headline that will weaken this series of posts and the general coverage of the built environment was the layoff of 12 percent of the Houston Chronicle staff. Many of the lost reporters were frequently linked to from this blog. See this working list from the Houston Press of former Chron employees.
Friday March 27
Rice, Baylor merger talks enter first stage No timeline set as schools study benefits, goals “The Baylor hospital is considered a potential stumbling block to the merger. Leebron told the Houston Chronicle editorial board in November that the big question is how a hospital would fit into a deal.”
Thursday March 26
WAREHOUSE DISTRICT Three area buildings net historic designation: Mir Azizi is engineer, owner of development company ‘”In Iran, something has to be at least 1,000 years old to be considered historic,’ he said.”
South Houston continues ‘green’ effort initiative: $6.4 million building replaces current library
HEIGHTS Artist’s home featured on 2009 home tour “‘There are a number of people in the Heights who want to maintain historic value of the houses while adding modern conveniences, who can put a contemporary, new kitchen next to original molding in a way that retains the architectural integrity,’ said Christine Spin, HHA’s tour coordinator. The Palmer-Lindsay Home, a 1930s renovated bungalow with an architecturally harmonious addition, epitomizes this year’s theme – Soaring to New Heights.”
Katy-area senior apartment project nears completion: Blazer opened its first local complex in 2007
REAL ESTATE Everything they wanted in a home: Development sits on golf course, sports complex planned “Already known for easy access to downtown Houston, Greenspoint and Bush Intercontinental Airport, Fall Creek continues to attract buyers. With a 13-mile expansion of Beltway 8, east of U.S. 59 North set to begin this summer, residents can expect travel time to and from Fall Creek to improve dramatically.”
Former par-3 golf course opens as Alief park, community center
NEIGHBORHOOD HOME PRICE TRENDS
LIVING TRENDS Little houses. Big ideas. HOUSES: Low cost is appealing Lisa Gray reports on the RDA home tour. “Credit the Rice Design Alliance with great timing: Small has never looked more beautiful than it does now, as we fret simultaneously about our carbon footprints and the shuddering economy.”
REAL ESTATE Greyton Lane subdivision home prices start at $825K “Finding a never-developed homesite in the Memorial Villages is next to impossible – until now…Bonner Ball, the companies’ other principal, said its other current developments include Ca’sares, a European-style gated community of 119 town homes, which is 30-percent complete in the Rice Military area of Memorial Drive, and Bammel Lane Park Homes, a gated enclave of 12 homesites in the River Oaks area.”
Wednesday March 25
Spend our grandkids’ money well CASEY: If we take their cash, give something back “[A]rchitectural historian Stephen Fox provides a list of some of the other New Deal projects in Houston…”
Monday March 23
MOVE IT! Metro won’t be using stimulus money on rail Feds prefer the funds be spent on HOV conversion This decision was partially reversed. See the headline above.
Sunday March 22
To newcomer artist Warren, this was a city of chaos GRAY: One day she had to paint landscapes again “A few years ago, Warren suddenly, desperately wanted to paint landscapes – landscapes of the world she suddenly understood: a world glimpsed through a windshield, a world maddeningly hard to fix in memory, a world that is, in Warren’s phrase, ‘wonderfully awful.’ You can see that world in ‘Here’s Nowhere,’ her exhibition at Rudolph Projects/ArtScan Gallery. The paintings show gas stations, power lines, freeway overpasses, cell towers, chain-link fences – the stuff of everyday commutes, the eyesores you dimly notice as you wait for the light to change, the places between the important things in your life.”
Saturday March 21
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