Here’s a little handy graphic from Mayor Parker’s Metro transition task force, identifying what the team considers “major unresolved design issues” in the planned East End, Southeast, University, and Uptown light-rail lines. Attempts to resolve all 6 of them appear to be “bogged down” at the Metro staff level, according to the task force committee. Each problem might delay construction or increase cost, and each has already been “actively discussed” for at least a year.

What are they?

• the Downtown alignments of the East End Line and Southeast Line on Capital and Rusk streets as they cross the Main Street Line;
• how the East End and Southeast Lines and car traffic will flow around the proposed Dynamo Stadium site in East Downtown;
• how grade separation will work with a freight-rail crossing on the East End Line on Harrisburg near Hughes St.;
• details of the Southeast and University Lines near the University of Houston along Scott St.;
• how the University Line will cross and interact with Main Street Line at the Wheeler station in Midtown; and
• the design of the Uptown Line north of San Felipe, along the 610 West Loop.

Oh, and then there’s this little bit about finding the money to build it all:

* * *

As long as Metro can resolve issues with the city concerning payments from its General Mobility Program, “funding appears sufficient” for the North, Southeast, and East End lines, the task force’s funding structure committee reports. But:

Hurdles remain for funding of the five line system. Funding threshold for five line[s] gets easier if Uptown line is delayed/deleted.

“We know there will be sufficient funding to build three new rail lines” were the words Mayor Parker chose to use at a press conference yesterday where she introduced her choices for 5 new members of the Metro board and released the task force reports. “However, hurdles remain for funding a five line system. I am committed to five lines, but we may need to proceed in phases.”

A press release from the mayor’s office adds:

The Obama Administration’s budget proposal currently includes $900 million in federal funding for the North and Southeast Light Rail Lines. The East End Line, the only line already under construction, and the Uptown Line are to be funded locally. The University Line will also require federal funding. The current best guess estimate of when that funding might be approved is 2014.

• Task force finds ‘hurdles’ funding 5 light rail lines [Bellaire Examiner]
• Fed transportation secretary wants new leadership for Houston Metro, mayor says [Texas Watchdog]
• Mayor Annise Parker Names Five New Metro Appointees / Releases Metro Transition Team Reports [Mayor's Office]
• Previously on Swamplot: Getting Around the East Downtown Soccer Blockstopper

Graphic: Light Rail Punchlist Committee, Mayor’s Transition Task Force on the Metropolitan Transit Authority

I’m sure it’s like a buy 20 get one free sort of deal, so maybe we could get that nifty telephone too.” [Bobby Hadley, commenting on Pearland Heads Cut Off: The WaterLight District’s Giant Presidential Bust]

Yes, there’s a straight shot from that outdoor fireplace in the back of this house all the way to a walled-off courtyard in the front. And it’s all lined up for you from the back patio: Kitchen, Dining Area, Living Room, and front yard beyond. If you took down that front wall you’d have a better view — past a row of oaks and some bushes — of the Rice Stadium parking lot across the street. The address is 2239 University Blvd. in Southgate.

The home was designed by Strasser Ragni Architecture’s Erick Ragni and his wife, Emily Sing. It’s theirs.

* * *

This long living space takes up about a half of the first floor in the 3,600-sq.-ft. house. Not shown here: the family’s own work space in the other half.

Up the stairs for the rest:

Like what you see? Or maybe just the area it’s in? You can tour both at this weekend’s Rice Design Alliance home tour of Southgate, where this home and 7 others are featured. The tour runs Saturday and Sunday from 1 to 6.

• Southgate: An Urban Oasis [OffCite]
• 2010 Architecture Tour: Rice University’s Neighbors to the South [Rice Design Alliance]
• Strasser Ragni Architecture

Photos: Eric Hester (interiors) and Paul Hester, Hester + Hardaway (exteriors)

* * *

Commercial Structures

• Gillespie’s Antiques, 4113 Leeland St. 77023
  

Residences

• 3722 Cleburne St. 77004 (garage only)
• 2339 Robinhood St. 77005 (garage only)
• 723 Herkimer St. 77007 (2 structures)
• 3816 Moore St. 77009
• 227 W. 32nd St. 77018
• 1614 Driscoll St. 77019
• 7135 Finch St. 77028
• 5043 Briscoe St. 77033
• 4550 Sunflower St. 77051

So who gets a pair of tickets to the Rice Design Alliance’s annual home tour this weekend? Why, the winner of this week’s Neighborhood Guessing Game, of course! And that would be the player our judges deemed “close enough” for the win: Congratulations, JKL! You’re going to . . . Southgate!

A very close second place goes to Brian, and an honorable mention to movocelot, who just ended up on the wrong side of I-45.

How far off were you?

* * *

Location: 17410 Rustic Canyon Trail, Ponderosa Forest
Details: 5 bedrooms, 3 1/2 baths; 3,968 sq. ft. on a 20,271-sq.-ft. lot
Price: $189,000
The Scoop: Two-story brick and wood home dating from 1971 with vaguely Tudor styling in front, built on 2 cul-de-sac lots just blocks away from the former Houston residence of Alabama drug kingpin Daron Odell Jones. Private patio off Master Bedroom; private balcony off upstairs Bedroom currently used as Gameroom. Picture windows off Living and Dining Rooms face large back yard. Extra room off Kitchen. On the market since just before Christmas.

Maybe you’ll win next time! That’d be next Tuesday. Will you?

• Neighborhood Guessing Game: Teevee Corner [Swamplot]
• This week’s prize sponsor: Rice Design Alliance

Yeah, there are lots of very large homes in Houston that kinda look like some drug lord’s mansion. But how can you find one that’s truly authentic? Here’s one way: Look for a property that’s been put on the market by actual U.S. marshals!

Like this 5-bedroom, 4-bath pinkish-brownish stucco crib at 17907 Elk Valley Circle in Ponderosa Trails. It sits on a 2.54-acre lot on a quiet cul-de-sac just south of Cypress Creek near Kuykendahl, and comes complete with the requisite pool and patio, hot tub, double-height porte-cochere, and 4-car garage.

Sure, it sorta looks like it might be the home of a drug kingpin, but so do a lot of other big homes in town built since, say, 2000. What’s this one’s pedigree?

* * *

It’s the well-dusted home of Daron Odell Jones, who pled guilty 2 years ago in an Alabama court to possession of 150kg of cocaine, with an intent to distribute. He agreed to forfeit his home earlier this year — but an expired listing still online appears to show that his home was already for sale . . . as a foreclosure.

Jones also gave up to the feds a million dollars in cash, a 2007 Mercedes Benz S-550, a silver 2006 Maserati, a silver 2006 Ferrari F-430, a black 2007 BMW M6, 3 other cars, 4 wristwatches, a 15-karat white gold woman’s diamond ring, and a 14-karat yellow gold diamond “Jesus” pendant on a necklace.

Was this guy a legitimate drug kingpin or what?

Law enforcement officials said Jones led a drug empire supplying the Mobile, Alabama, area and had ties to a violent Mexican drug cartel. He’s now serving a 13-year sentence — less than the normal minimum of 30 years because Jones also supplied investigators with information about 18 other people involved in his business, including 5 suppliers.

And now . . . his little Houston getaway can be yours! Just think of the stories you’ll be able to tell your guests as you separately climb those dual foyer staircases!

You’ll have a chance to case the 8,024-sq.-ft. property at an open house from 10 am to 1 pm next Wednesday, March 24th. Bidding starts at $471,250, and will take place online from March 29th to 21st.

• USMS: Houston, TX - Single Family Home Situated on 2.54 Acres [Bid4Assets]
• House-hunting? US Marshals to auction former drug kingpin’s Houston mansion [KHOU, via Swamplot inbox]
• 17907 Elk Valley Cir. [Houston Family Homes]
• Houston kingpin gets 13 years for supplying dealers in Mobile, Ala., elsewhere and Dealer gives up his riches [al.com]

How best to describe this unique home? We’ll give it a stab: Elegant, modern, cathedral-like little 6-bedroom, 8-1/2-bath getaway on the right bank of the sometime-fiery San Jacinto River in Highlands. Interior rock waterfall at entry, park-like 2.3-acre setting bounded by small creek. Floor-to-ceiling windows bring in plenty of light and refined air. Pink Kitchen with circular island. Just Minutes north of the Lynchburg Ferry. Built in 1972.

And the price for all this fabulousness?

* * *

An earlier listing shows the 10,402-sq.-ft. property priced at $848,000. But it’s been re-listed since mid January at $699,500.

• 1501 N. Main St. [HAR]

The property intended to be home to the Waterlights District — the proposed mixed-use shopping and eating extravaganzorama in Pearland — has been posted for foreclosure by its main creditor, Amegy Bank. The 1.9 million-sq.-ft. development was to feature condos, luxury apartments, office buildings, retail space, restaurants, 2 hotels, a conference facility, a “water wall,” and a Venice-like “Grand Canal.”

The site, off the Shadow Creek Pkwy. exit on the west side of Hwy. 288, has been marked for more than 2 years now by a curious semicircle of David Adickes sculptures, a preview of the development’s Presidential Park and Gardens. That park was to feature giant white busts of all 38 U.S. Presidents. But unlike Adickes other presidential suite, I-45’s Mount Rush Hour just north of Downtown Houston — in which each of the sculptor’s busts rests on its own podium — in the Waterlights grouping the 7 Presidents moved to the site appear from the freeway to be buried in the earth up to their chests, somehow managing to keep their heads above the often-times-soggy land around them. Yes, it was the perfect marker for a freeway-side development buried in debt and treading quicksand just to keep itself afloat:

* * *

Boardwalk and the Spectrum LP purchased the 48-acre site in February 2007 for $5 million in cash and a $10 million bank loan, [executive director David] Goswick said. That translated to $10 per [usable] square foot.

“Today, the same property is only worth $4 (per square foot) to $4.50 per square foot, or approximately $5 million,” Goswick said.

. . . in February 2009, the bank rejected the developers’ request to extend the loan for another year and later increased the interest rate to 18 percent, from the previous 7.5 percent, he said.

Will someone be able to bail these Presidents out before they’re, uh . . . entirely submerged?

Oooh. Maybe that’s the wrong terminology to use here. Ultimate Pearland reporter Robert Stanton continues:

Goswick’s partner, Richard P. Browne, director of planning and development at Boardwalk at the Spectrum LP, put it bluntly in an e-mail.

“When Amegy Bank’s parent bank (Zions Bancorporation) receives over $1.4 billion in (federal Troubled Asset Relief Program) money and can borrow money at 1.5 percent, then turn around and charge 18 percent, it is a sin and a shame. The numbers don’t work anymore.”

Browne added, “Unfortunately, the banks stopped lending to everyone and we ran out of time.”

• WaterLights project headed for foreclosure [Ultimate Pearland]
• Previously on Swamplot: Ex-Presidents in Pearland: Heads Above the Muck

Photos: Imelda Bettinger [license]

* * *

Commercial Structures

• 12779 Market St. 77015
• 4350 Maggie St. 77051
• CVS, 3401 Tidwell Rd. 77093

Residences

• 614 E. 19th St. 77008
• 1123 Yale St. 77008 (garage only)
• 5001 Park Dr. 77023 (3 structures)
• 1614 Driscoll St. 77019
• 4015 Whitman St. 77027
• 1740 Sul Ross St. 77098 (Lancaster Place)

Never mind that wine bars the Wine Bucket, the Corkscrew, and the Tasting Room in Midtown have all been poured down the drain since January. Krutar Patel says he’s planning to open his brand new wine bar, Winetopia, this May. He’s already added his placard to the giant brick sign in front of the Fairmont on San Felipe at 6363 San Felipe.

The midrise apartment complex with a retail center on its ground level is already home to a martial-arts studio and a Subway. Winetopia will sandwich itself between the two businesses. Patrons will be able to stumble upstairs to their apartments or, if necessary, to the 24-hour St. Luke’s Community Emergency Center in the same center, conveniently located just yards away.

* * *

Patel doesn’t know how other wine bars have survived, calling some of them “overpriced” and “too commercialized.” He says he’ll offer wines “you can’t find at H-E-B or Specs” with a majority of them priced below $25. He’ll also offer wine flights and cold plates. And he says the bar will feature lovely Tuscan-inspired interiors.

• About Winetopia [Winetopia]
• Closures pop cork on wine bar sector consolidation [Houston Business Journal]
• Previously on Swamplot: Fairmont on San Felipe: Stacked! and The Fairmont on San Felipe: Close Enough for Comfort

Photos: Melinda Merola