Demos appear to be ready to commence on a good-sized swath of Independence Heights surrounding Booker T. Washington High School at 119 East 39th St.
“Seems everything between Yale and Main is about to be bulldozed… an entire neighborhood vanishing,” writes a reader. “It’s really kinda spooky looking — like an abandoned ghost town”:
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HISD is at work on a $51.7 million demo and rebuild of the 57-year-old campus, one that will almost double the engineering magnet school’s capacity to approximately 1,300 students. HISD bought up these boarded-up homes partially to accommodate larger parking lots and ball fields.
The reader is also “curious to see if this finally sparks some new interest in developing Independence Heights, and sends in this melancholy sunset photo-tour.
- Washington HS community gets update on plans leading up to construction of new school [HISD]
- HISD pressing ahead with land acquisition [Houston Chronicle]
Photos: Swamplot inbox
This isn’t unique to Booker T Washington High School. A lot of the first wave Bond program schools (the total rebuilds) are being developed on adjacent pieces of land. They’re doing this in order to keep the existing schools up and running while construction happens. Most of the schools are taking over apartment complexes or commercial properties, though; not whole single family neighborhoods.