brerrabbit

It was an agreement that was reached before SCR ever broke ground. I think you yourself has told others that if you live in the Brazoria County side of SCR that you would attend the elementary school in SCR, the Jr. High in Manvel and Manvel High School. This is not breaking news its been this way from the start.

I am fairly certain the link does not work anymore because the house sold. It was feature in the Chronicle article that was the subject of another post under the real estate section. rps was also featured in the story.

I know all about Ellington, I owned a house in Sycamore Valley for 13 years. I know how loud the planes taking off and landing there are. Your points seem to agree with me sometimes and disagree at other times. What is the point of expanding Clover? I thought it was to get the smaller planes away from Hobby. If thats the case then move them to Ellington. If all you want to do at Clover is house more small planes, then fine build more hangers, no problem. But the jest of what they want to do is extend runways to take larger planes. You can relieve a lot of the congestion at Hobby via Ellington. It may be better as a Civil/Military airport but to date all that goes on over there is NASA flights, the Air National Guard, and UPS. There are some private smaller hangers but there is a lot of room for growth. The entire backside of Ellington is open with room for growth. Also look at the area around Ellington. Landfills, warehouse areas, and very few house that are really close. Until Ellington is busting at the seams I don't see the need for Clover expansion. By the way who are all these people looking for additional hangar space? I know of several small strips around the area that would be more than willing to sell land for hangar space. If it's needed that bad there is plenty to be had without expanding Clover.

True, maybe a bit unrealistic but since I know more of this specific back story since I graduated from college with the editor of one of the local newspapers and feel that Rivera had no aspirations whatsoever of serving in public office until the airport issue came up I think this is in fact a case of "he" should not be allowed to have run. Certainly they can not participate in council issues relating specifically to the airport, however his influence is always present and the local source of information for the rest of the council members on the subject of the airport is always available from Rivera who can slant the information. I know the idea is totally unrealistic and more of a dream than anything else. On the issue of change to an area, like adding an airport, I understand that completely and have no sympathy for those who built houses around IAH when the original idea was to build the thing out in the middle of nowhere and the houses came after the fact knowing full well that it was there first. Clover Field is different because I admit it was there long before my house. But it was also a small field with small planes, that was very close to Hobby and one could reasonably expect it to not be expanded for that reason. Now smaller towns that are growing like Friendswood and Pearland have aspirations of growing up and becoming something they were never planned to be and the next thing you know is we need a major regional airport. Really? Why, you have Hobby and Ellington field each no more than six miles away. Is that not close enough?

I am 48 years old and grew up near the East End. It's all a matter of perspective. I lived near the corner of Griggs and Telephone Rd and considered East End more centered around Telephone and Lawndale. My great Aunt and Uncle lived off Broadmor on Pierson and I considered that the East End. Maybe it had something to do with Little League Baseball which was all consumming in my life at the time and East End Little League was on Dumble next to Austin HS. In my mind that was East End. If you were over near Navagation, that was Magnolia Little League so by default that could not be the East End. If you went down the Gulf Freeway to Griggs that was Dixie Little League so again that could not be the East End. Maybe because Houston was smaller and my world was so small that I tended to subdivide what there was of it into much smaller and more defined areas. Thats my mental version of East End.

Well as someone who lives very close to the old Clover Field I can say that I would not like to see the expansion. Granted when I bought my house 14 years ago I knew it was there but I also knew what kind of facility it was as well. It had smaller runways and smaller planes and I was fine with that. The worrysome part for me is the idea that they want to expand the runways in order to accept larger planes. Currently there are no jets using the facility. That means less noise. The expanded runways would allow the leasing of hangars to corporate type planes which means jets and more noise. The CAF was negotiating heavily with the airport several years ago to base the Gulf Coast Wing's B-17 there, but the deal fell through when the airport could not commit to the longer runway needed for the plane. Hobby is really close and if the acquisition means more smaller Cessna type planes with more hangar space then I am okay with that. But if the purchase means a viable airport for more and larger planes then I am against it. By the way the Rivera who is the airport manager is I believe the same guy who was elected to Friendswood city council last year and his supposed motivation for doing so was to push the airport expansion idea from the inside. Another example of why people with jobs like his should not be allowed to become city officials.

I don't know the true story but having grown up in SE Houston and taking many a trip down 35 as a kid on my way to West Columbia I have heard lots of rumors. At one point I heard that it served for some time as a meterologiccal facility. In later years I have heard that a family lived there and that one of their children was severely disturbed. I have no idea what the truth is. I do however know some long time Pearland residents who I can ask about it. Maybe Wednesday night when I go to church I can ask a few people about it.

I know the exact place your talking about. It was on Telephone Road with the entrance right across the street from the old Hickory Stick bar-b-que place. You had to look to find it becasue all you could see from Telephone was a sign next to a gravel road that led to the resturaunt. I remember it well because when I was 4 or 5 for whatever reason we went out to eat on Christmas Eve ( this would have been around 1963-64) and no one was open on Christmas Eve. We drove all over looking for a place to eat and I said what about that place and pointed at the sign, and sure enough they were open and thats where we ate. The house is long since gone and the forest that protected it from the rest of the world mowed down.

I always love these discussions where homeowners actions seem to prompt the reaction of the HOA and the supporters who come out in favor of the HOA saying "oh they are just protecting the value of my property!" Get real people! First off who in their right mind would buy the house at the entrance or exit to the neighborhood and regardless of what fence is there expect any level of privacy? Then when they attempt to fix the situation not expect the wrath of the HOA? People are so quick to grab onto the latest trend and move to the fastest growing areas where all sorts of these things are gonna happen, as well as problems with the fast growing retail centers, roads, crime and overcrowding. I have said it before and will say it again, thank God I live in east Pearland where the growth is not driving me crazy. And in that regard the rapid growth of west Pearland has spread the enthusiasm all the way across town and I fear will lead to vacant buildings and decline of my once tranquil hometown. Developers and lenders have got caught up in the rush of money to Pearland and are rapidly overbuilding the retail infrastructure. Drive east on 518 sometime and notice the number of retail centers planned, being built and already built. The notice the occupancy rate of the retail centers. It falls proportionately the farther east you get. The extra space built in front of the movie theatres at McClean Rd hvae not been occupied since they built them five years ago. The industrial building turned retail center at Galveston Street has never had any tenents. Further past Lowes behind the new Chili's that center has been built for over a year with one tenent, a nail salon. Now further past Dixie Farm Road next to the skating rink they are building retail and a sign just across the street where a huge house on ten acres sits they just put up a sign announcing more retail space. While I enjoy the retail and dinning opportunities in west Pearland the additional growth it has spawned further east is not welcomed and simply turning my once small little town into what will become an area of urban blight.

This topic was discussed in the closed golf courses discussion under historic Houston. Yes the purchased land is along Sims Bayou and starts basically across the street from Hartman Jr. high and runs east towards Telephone Road. The owner was renting out the property to two people. One ran horse stables near the front of the property and the other kept goats closer to the bayou. The place was a mess with old cars, engines and junk that had accumulated over the years. The land was acquired several months ago actually and according to my friend who works for the Houston Parks Board, they actually bought it and after development it will be given to the city. The project is similar to the one being done along Braes Bayou with the ultimate goal being a hike and bike trail that runs all along the bayou. The Braes project hopes to go all the way from the ship channel at Brady's Landing all the way to Herman Park. Also this may not be the right forum to bring it up in but, the Downtown skate park is coming along nicely. I can see the project out my window in downtown Houston. According to my friend the goal is to have it complete by Memorial Day weekend. That's the planned grand opening. They have skaters and skateboarders coming from all over the country and the world for the opening weekend. Supposedly one of the features is a twenty foot diameter bowl that resembles a teacup laying on it's side. It alows skaters to actually go all the way around. Reportedly its the largest one of its kind in the country.

Schlumberger still owns something in the area. My friend who works for the Parks Board said that they are trying to acquire land along the Braes bayou for the greenspace/hike/bike trail and had talked to them about a piece of land they still owned back there.

I spent a very short time in real estate and can certainly understand the difficulties of the job, but at the same time as a consumer who no longer works in real estate has the same complaints as others about the profession. I think there is value added by a good RE agent but at the same time it seems they do very little to make their money. The measure for a good RE agent is how many houses they move and the industry seems to have moved somewhat to team concepts in order to generate more transactions to make more money. I have no problem with this. However in the articles I have read about the California case I think the agent did a huge diservice to realators everywhere when he said, they weren't sophisticated buyers and didn't do their due diligence. Well excuse me, what were you getting paid $30,000 for? My experience quite frankly in RE was this, you spend most of your time marketing yourself and convincing people to list with you. This leads you to not spending enough time actually working for your clients. I worked with a lady who started around the same time I did and had deep roots in the area I worked. She grew up there and knew half the people in town. She marketed herself extremely well and knew a tremendous amount of families in the just entering empty nest stage who were looking to move down from the family home to a smaller home. She had tons of listings and was really put on the map when she sold a $695,000 listing on Taylor Lake after it had gone unsold for over a year with another agent. The sale was "luck" because the house was an odity with four floors and a regulation craps table on the first floor. It was on the water and strictly a party house that was waiting for that one "right buyer". She did nothing to market it really and the owner just happened to tell a party friend he was selling and the guys company wound up buying it. The point of the story is this, the lady was dumb as a rock! She said and did everything you are taught as a realator not to do. She guareenteed people she would sell theri house within a certain time, she made promises she could not keep. By luck or fate or karma none of thes things ever came back to bite her. Now 8 years later she has her own Remax office and I talk to her occasionally and guess what? She is still dumb as a rock! She manages to succeed in spite of herself. I would never consider doing any transactions with her because it would inverably lead to disaster. The point of my rant is this, a good RE agent can add value to a transaction but from my personal experience a lot of RE agents add virtually no value. Many people go to them because they hold a key to the most important asset there is when it comes to selling a house. That being the MLS. Houses in suburbia that list for about $250,000 and less don't take a whole lot of selling. They are what they are, you put a sign in the yard and a listing online and go on your way. If you can get people to list in this market, you will make your money. Agents who work older neighborhoods with widely varing prices and less cookie cutter house seem to be the ones that earn their money. They have to know the market and work hard and generally don't make nearly as much as the agents in suburbia. I salute them and would never consider buying or selling in those areas without them. The soccer moms doing RE part time in suburbia I could live without.

An interesting article in the Wallstreet Journal a couple of weeks ago noted that McDonalds was getting into the gourmet coffee business. Apparently Starbucks has done themselves a disservice by introducing the masses to gourmet coffee. The article said since Starbucks inception that the number of people drinking the upscale coffees have increased significantly pulling in a more middle to lower income class of consumer. These consumers like the Starbucks offering but also like their Egg McMuffins in the morning. Surveys showed they really did not want to stop one place for coffee and another place for food. So McDonalds decided to introduce cappacino and lattes to their customers. In test markets it has gone over extremly well and McDonalds is now gearing up for a much wider rollout of the offering. Unlike all their other offerings that are prepared in mass assembly kitchens away from the customers eyes they are hiring barristas and putting the machines up front for everone to see. In response many Starbucks are adding breakfast sandwiches to their menus but thus far its not going over to well. So the question may be instead of how long till a Starbucks shows up in the area, how long till the local McDonalds adds a cappacino machine and a barrista to the front counter?

I don't know if the story was true but my Father sold building materials years ago in Houston and he sold concrete block, bricks and mortar to construction firms. Next door to the AT&T building years ago there was an old two story frame house that an older lady lived in. She had lived there for many years and during every phase of construction at the phone building she would sit on her front porch and delicate flower at the workers to stay off her property. On several occasions some form of building material would fall and hit her house and she would scream and yell and call everyone from the phone company to the contractor, to the police, to city hall. Eventually the construction firm just learned that if it happened they would send someone to apoligize and basiclly offer the lady some small amount of money to "settle" the issue. My Father told my that story many times over the years.

Well two reasons I think I was aware of the apartments, first when I saw the original plans the area was marked as multi family units. Since they saw me as some dumb hick from Pearland looking for a baseball field for kids to play on I flat out asked them, "does that mean apartments?" and they said yeah. Second for all the flowery literiture and flyers they put out advertising the plans for SCR once they got to the zoning guys and city council they were asked point blank, "does the plan include apartments?" and they had to answer honestly to get the deal they wanted with the city. At the time the city was and still is very anti apartments but legally they can't say no. But what they can do is limit the number of units per acre, which effectively pushes the initial rents way up.

I have lived in Pearland for 15 years and have seen the SCR plans from the beginning. I attended City Council meetings and school board meetings during which the entire SCR Master Plan was discussed. There have always been plans for apartments. Part of the discussions during the school board meetings was if the city included SCR would the school district have to incorporate the students from the apartments. Given the rapid growth of the west side of Pearland and the ever increasing number of students it was stated that if SCR was to be in PISD then there would have to be rapid accelerated growth and mega bond issues to cover the cost of the new schools. Thats on top of the schools that were already needed to cover the expansion outside of SCR. At the time I knew several board members personally and they were given several presentations by the developers of SCR and every presentation included apartments exactly where the apartments are today in SCR. At the time I was the President of the Pearland Area Dads Club and we knew that with the growth we would be needing additional playing fields for Little League Baseball, Girls Softball, and Youth Football. As such I contacted the developers to see what their master plan was and to see if we could possibly arrange long term, low cost leases for sports fields within SCR. During my meeting with the developers in 1999-2000 I saw the original site plans for SCR. Included in those plans were apartments. I was also told that no recreational areas were available for negotiations because as part of the overall deal cut with the City of Pearland that all available green space was commited to the Pearland Parks Department and that any negotiations of the construction and use of the areas would have to go through them. Say what you want but I believe today and will always believe because I was told by numerous people associated with the developers, school board members, city council members, and other city officials that apartments were always on the plan, plans I saw as early as 1999.

http://houston.bizjournals.com/houston/sto.../18/story5.html Read the above article from June of 2001. On page 2 is says "Multi-family and senior housing units will be constructed as well." If you are not familiar with real estate speak multi-family housing units means apartments. They did not make a late night decision fueled by the success of new apartments off 288. They planned from day one to have apartments as part of the development, so I say once again nobody should be surprised that ther are apartments in Shadow Creek Ranch as they have planned for them since day one.

Nice house! What shocked me as much as anything is that Mrs Guillory is still selling houses. I graduated from high school with her daughter in 1977. I would have thought she would be hanging it up by now. Her daughter Betty was at one time married to Carlos Garcia but the last time I ran into her, Carlos and her had divorced. I also remember the house just down from this one that I always liked as well. It was on the cul-de-sac at the end of Erie and had driveway access out to Broadway. A friend of mine from Little League lived there. His name was Jack Murchison. His father owned a company that built steel buildings. I remember going in it several times when I was a kid.

No one has metioned it so I will. For you it would be a drive but its one of the better ones I know of. Its Joesephs Nursery on FM 1128 between Manvil and Pearland. Actually closer to Pearland. It's a huge place with tons of selection. It's family owned and operated and the different generations that work there live right around the corner in some very nice houses. Beyound the selection they just have so many plants that you can usually find what you want in the right size you want. From your area go Telephone south till its SH35, west on FM 518 to FM 1128 and then south about five miles to Joesephs on the left, its just past CR 101.

rps, I know that area extremely well as I played Little League Baseball with a lot of those families. I played at Freeway National Little Leage which was located on Wynlea. The fields went to Pony/Colt baseball and I think now no one plays there anymore. All the kids I played baseball with lived in the Glenbrook and Garden Villas area. I also attended high school with all those kids at Milby. Mark Patonella was on one of my teams for several years. The Joe Mandola I mention in my post would be the next generation and is probably a son of those who lived in Glenbrook. He opened his first deli in the shopping center at the corner of Broadway and Belfort. I have not been by there for a while but long ago there was an Eagle grocery store anchoring one end of it and a Walgreens anchoring the other end. There was a mall type indoor walkway that went from Eagle to Walgreens and he had his deli in there. Later he moved from there over to his current location at Cullen and Leeland.

Johnny Carraba was raised in Houston and is the nephew of Vincent, Damian, and Tony Mandola. Vincent owns Vincents and Ninos, Damian owned Damians on Smith till he sold it to help Johnny franchise Carraba's, and Tony owns Tony Mandola's Blue oyster bar. Jonny was a few years younger than me but I met him when I was about 15 or 16 through my next door neighbor. And keeping it in the family Vincent Mandola is married Ninfa Lorenzo's oldest daughter.

dunkin donuts are pretty big in the northeast and the reason ain't their donuts. It's their coffee. I worked in retail fuels sales for a while and we leased space at some of our staions to duncan donuts in New Jersey. We went on a market ride up there and every dunkin we passed (and we passed a lot of them) was packed. When we asked our sales reps what the deal was they said its where everyone gets their coffee up here. I went into Spec's on Smith the other day and was looking in the coffee section and along side the Starbucks blends, and other specialty coffee blends were bags of Dunkin Donuts coffees.

I grew up in Houston and had a lot of Italian friends, the Patronellas, Carrabas, Ruffinos, and Mandolas. My next door neighbor attended Catholic school her entire life and through her I met a lot of them. She attended Queen of Peace, and Incarnate Word and was a cheerleader and homecoming queen for ST. Thomas HS. Several of her friends lived near Wayside and Lawndale while the rest seemed to be spread out all around town. The Ruffinos lived in my neighborhood. The Mandolas deli that is at Cullen and Leeland is I think owned by Joe Mandola who lives (or did) in Pearland because his son played baseball in Pearland at the same time my son did.

It was the HNG building and was for a short time the Houston Office of Enron. I worked in that building from July of 1986 till December of 1986 when we moved to Four Allen Center which would soon after have its name changed to the Enron Building. I worked for Enron from 1986 till 1993.