Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Some retooling, rearrangement, and remediation on today’s permit spread.
Sign up for the Newsletter
Demolitions
Some tidying around Jefferson Davis High School’s soon-to-be upgraded campus, and a few other structural clean ups.
Disappearance won’t take care of itself. We must will these away. And follow up with equipment.
The sobriety services nonprofit formerly known as The Men’s Center is demolishing two buildings this week at 3805 and 3809 Main (pictured above), just south of Alabama St. Construction of the $12-million facility that will replace the 1940s structures is expected to be completed in 2017, on the same site at 3809 Main. In the interim, the organization (now calling itself ReCenter after adapting its programs this past summer to include women) will continue to serve food and offer sobriety meetings out of a nearby former convenience store at W. Alabama and Fannin.
The new building, designed by BRAVE architecture, is planned for the spot at 3809 Main:
ReCentering on Main St.
All eyes (well — at least 4) were on 3910 Kirby just north of 59 yesterday as excavators began snacking on the space formerly occupied by South Indian restaurant Madras Pavilion: reader J. Clark captured some sky-high views of the ongoing demolition; another anonymous tipster snapped shots from lower levels and the ground. The Corporate Plaza III building (shown en déshabillé above) also previously housed Central-American restaurant Red Onion and sushi joint Miyako.
A fence has gone up around both Corporate Plaza III and Corporate Plaza II, next door at 3930 Kirby. Demo permits for both structures were issued on Friday, and work began yesterday morning to bring the northern building down. Corporate Plaza I, the taller sibling of the doomed twins, is visible on the right behind the parking garage on the same property:
All-You-Can-Excavate
Could this be another poorly filled-out demolition permit? A 1962 mansion and some other ill-fated structures are on today’s clean up list.
That mod teardown estate, a 1970s office complex on Kirby, among some unlucky others.
The back-and-forth is over: following years of unsuccessful auctions, a plan to use the lot as 27 parking spaces, and that dramatic moment when someone offered to turn the building into a nutcracker factory, the downtown Hogan-Allnoch Dry Goods structure is finally resting in pieces. A demo permit was issued for 1319 Texas St. in late October, and the 1923 building came down last week:
No Love on Texas Ave.
It appeared for a few hours yesterday that the house at 2504 Pelham Dr. would be undergoing another round of remodeling: transformed from the 1938 design by Charles Oliver by a 2013 overhaul of facade and interior, the house looked to be slated for further transformation into rubble.
In fact, only the garage is going away, though the demo permit listing wasn’t specific. Several shocked readers jumped on the case and confirmed that the house itself is safe for the time being. Architectural firm Spencer Howard even discovered that the ill-fated garage is being redesigned by none other than architectural firm Spencer Howard McAlpine Tankersley:
Public Service Announcement
Not humungous enough in River Oaks, and other woeful tales of inadequacy.
Here’s a photo of the new construction underway on the now-barrel-bereft lot at 1601 Richmond, future home of drive-thru Vietnamese sandwich shop Oui Banh Mi. The new structure, shown above from Mandell, is currently shrouded in housewrap. (The historical photo of Lucky Burger is taken from the Richmond side.)
The Lucky Burger barrel, which stood on the corner for more than 40 years, was demolished on Halloween under the cover of citywide flood warnings.
Oui Banh Mi, No Barrel
