An M.D. Anderson Cancer Center official tells the HBJ‘s Jennifer Dawson that the UT institution will likely wait 3 to 10 years before putting any new structure on the site of the former Prudential Tower it’s been working diligently all year to knock down. Workers were moved out of the 18-story structure — renamed the Houston Main Building — last year. The hulking remains of the iconic 1952 Kenneth Franzheim building at 1100 Holcombe Blvd. will come down in a cloud of dust after several rounds of dynamite blasts on January 8th.
M.D. Anderson senior VP Dan Fontaine says the Med Center institution doesn’t even have a design yet for the 2 new structures — likely for outpatient care — that will eventually be built in that location. Until the institution finds a better use for it, the demo site will be turned into a “park-like setting.”
- Hospitals hesitate on billions of dollars of construction [Houston Business Journal]
- Previously on Swamplot: Med Center Prudential Tower Skeleton Will Survive Through End of Year, M.D. Anderson Tower Will Go Out with a Bang, Kill It in One Big Boom, Or Piece by Piece?, M.D. Anderson’s Quiet Preservation Effort: Peter Hurd’s Prudential Mural Has Left the Building, Sure Looks Like Demolition This Time: M.D. Anderson Begins Taking Down the Prudential Tower, Will M.D. Anderson’s Contractor Bungle the Largest Fresco Rescue Ever?, The Prudential Tower’s Grand Entrance, Before Its Not-so-Grand Exit, Update: M.D. Anderson Not Demolishing Former Prudential Tower Yet, Just Hacking Away at It a Bit, Report: M.D. Anderson Begins Demolishing Med Center Icon
Photo: Karen Lantz
I really love well planned parks but the phrase “park like setting” scares me a bit, in Houston especially.
Why didnt they wait until a actual new building was going to be constructed before they destroyed this building? Couldnt the office space be used until it was time to construct a new building ?
Maybe they can rebuild the Contemporary Arts Museum that was originally there. It was a “temporary” type structure.
It’s been vacant for a while, but it is an interesting site, very walkable to the TMC transit center.
@John – Try reading older articles and comments.
John, I’ll save you the trouble. They didn’t want to bother with it anymore because having been built as a 50’s insurance office building it wasn’t practical as a 2010’s medical office building. Or something like that. As with so much else in Houston, they want what they want and if there’s a historically significant building in the way it doesn’t matter.
If they build a park or any other structure I hope they will not name it after Kenneth Franzheim, the man that designed the current structure.
Thank you marmer
Yikes, and I cant’ sleep when I have a single vacancy at a single property :) I can’t imagine having a giant highrise and saying “eh, this building is outdated, I’ll blow it up then wait several years before replacing it”.
.
Must be nice! :)
.
I’d rent that sucker out to whoever could use it until I was ready to do something with it.