An excavator yesterday was hard at work scraping the 3300 block of the west side of Kirby clean.
Bounded by West Main St. and Colquitt St. and Lake St. to the rear, this block was long the site of a Settegast-Kopf funeral home, but like that seemingly straitlaced great-aunt with the closet full of empty gin bottles, the staid mortuary and adjacent buildings descended into drink, spending their final years as taverns Roak, Hendricks Pub, and the OTC Patio Bar.
Here’s what the Kirby frontage looked like in both its sober and lush incarnations:
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And now the building has been smote with the mighty hammer of Thor…Thor Equities, that is.
The demo is another phase in the New York real estate firm’s 7-coming-up-on-8-year-old plan to build the Kirby Collection, a gargantuan mixed-use project.
[NOTE: An earlier version of this post contained out-of-date renderings. These are the latest.]
- Previously on Swamplot: Signs Herald Kirby Dr. Funeral Bars’ Impending Doom; The Jazzy New Bouquet of Towers Meant To Replace 4 Bars in 3 Buildings on a Kirby Block
Photos: Swamplot inbox (demo); Candace Garcia (Roak Bar); Aaron Carpenter (Settegast-Kopf Funeral Home). Renderings: Thor Equities
Just another sign of the shallow, unyielding, money grabbing gentrification of a once nice and quaint neighborhood. Back in the day I’d like to grab some tacos down at the ol’ Taco Milagro and then head over to the neighborhood club to eat them poolside with some fine bottle service, Grey Goose perchance? Now we’re letting these developers tear down these local institutions for this god-awful monstrosity. What is this city coming to?
I really hope this gets built soon
Bring it on!
The douchery is dead!!!
what is the city coming to you ask? a city with greater density to incorporate a larger creative class that can help drive local productivity and raise salaries across all income levels. the barrier for development in Houston is not how it impacts your life, but how it impacts the city as a whole. there’s a lot of folks being raised here and Houston is trying to help increase their chances of being able to live in a nice and quaint neighborhood like the montrose used to be. this usually involves changing the old ones to create plenty of new ones with a net benefit to all involved parties.
@James must be edging up on 25 yrs old, “back in the day”. Carry in tacos to accompany the poolside bottle service of Grey Goose…? With such upscale establishments like James recalls, Houston is better off with progress rather than hanging on the douchery of the recent years.
Ah yes, gentrification. Back in the day I bought my Buick at Hub Buick which was torn down to build that great neighborhood taco joint Taco Milagro…evil developers! I shopped at Jamail’s Grocery where they selected fruits for you…damn gentrification! They tore down my grocery store and built a car wash…money grubbing developers! I used to sit at the House of Pies and watch the boys enter the dirty bookstore across the street and then gentrification converted it to Carrabba’s who in turn tore it down to build a new Carrabba’s…awful gentrification! Stop the madness you evil soul sucking developers.
THOR EQUITIES? hahaha
Cools designs… But in today’s market, the big question is, are they fully financed?
James,
I do believe you have Poe’d* Joel and Higher Density. Good work.
*See Poe’s law.
tcpIV
Yep, never could eat at Carrabbas with a straight face.
Yes good job James. Because the douche bag bouncers at clubs let everyone come in with bags of tacos.
Amazing changes in the last 5 years on the stretch of Kirby between 59 and Westheimer. I hope the traffic studies show we can support this, allow for bicycle riders and hopefully bring more mass transit to move more people with less pollution.
@awp,
Ah, thank you for the reference. I was not aware that it had a name. I think the law applies here.
I own funeral homes here in Houston and SCI who own all white funeral homes AKA Dignity Memorial refused to sale me that building because im black and my funeral homes are black. LOL They sold it to a club and bar owner and now a beautiful build is rubble. So sad.