With 2 years to go on its current lease in a Bayou Place II space at 315 Capitol St. downtown, the Architecture Center Houston has begun searching for a new home. Buy and renovate or build? Sure — as long as it’s a “long term solution,” the center’s director tells Swamplot. A new HQ should have more space than its current 5,000 sq. ft. spot (through the main doors under the canopy in the photo above), plus “more visible street presence and a better parking situation than we have now,” writes Rusty Bienvenue.
The new digs don’t have to be downtown: “Our membership doesn’t mind being pioneers and we believe we bring a cool factor to an area that few other organizations can match.” But it’s now or . . . back to plain ol’ office space, he adds. If the center, which combines gallery and meeting space with the Houston offices of the American Institute of Architecture and the Houston Architecture Foundation, can’t find something to buy in the next couple of months, it’ll go back to looking at lease space.
This flyer detailing the options went out to members last week:
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Photos: Architecture Center Houston
They need to rent space, cheaper then operatoring your own building. Plus with the way the AIA requires your first born for membership fees each year, I would hope most members would feel this same way. Whole lot of money for so little in return.
Architecture Center Houston needs to be in a strip center for me to take them seriously.
Not a member, but am a member of another professional organization that saw fit to spend millions of dollars buying up real estate for their office. Such a waste for a professional organization to own when a nice office building will more than suffice. Sounds like these guys probably pay themselves huge salaries too that far outstrip what the average architect makes. That’s how it works in the professional organization I belong to.
Two story building next door to Houston Permitting Center,
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Arch Center Houston on second floor. Liquor store on first floor.