CHIPPING AWAY AT THE MUSEUM DISTRICT 
Those little tree topper signs have been up throughout the larger neighborhood for a while now, but the new Boulevard Oaks Historic District was only approved by City Council this week. The designation means you’ll now have to wait 90 days before you can demolish that rambling South Blvd. mansion you just picked up. At the same meeting, council members approved an 8-acre extension to the Midtown TIRZ that takes a bite out of the Museum District. The area includes the new locations of Asia House, the Buffalo Soldiers Museum, and the Museum of African-American Culture. [Houston Chronicle, via Slampo’s Place] Photo: WhisperToMe
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Historic Districts
Some news from the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance:
The congregation of Immanuel Lutheran Church has voted to delay until spring 2010 the proposed demolition of its Gothic Revival sanctuary on East 15th Street at Cortlandt in the Heights East Historic District.
In late October, the city Archeological and Historic Commission voted to deny the church a “certificate of appropriateness” for the demo, which meant the church would have had to wait a full 90 days anyway — until late January of next year — to tear down its vacant 1932 brick building.
- Historic Heights church faces demolition [GHPA]
- Can This Lutheran Church Be Saved? [Swamplot]
Photo: Heights Blog
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THAT HOUSE THEY WERE GIVING AWAY IN THE OLD SIXTH WARD? 
“This house was torn [down] yesterday…very sad. [The] large house that is next to it was still there this morning. We will see if its there when I go home today. There is another small house on the same lot that was torn down about a week and a half ago.” [Casey, commenting on An Old Sixth Ward House To Take Home with You]
A number of readers have written in to report that Immanuel Lutheran Church has filed an application with the city to demolish its former sanctuary building on the corner of 15th St. and Cortlandt in the Heights. Since the 1932 brick building is in one of the Heights historic districts, demo applicants are required to request a certificate of appropriateness from the Houston Archeological and Historical Commission. The application will be voted on at the next HAHC meeting on October 22nd, but a denial from the HAHC won’t mean much: After waiting 90 days, the church can go ahead with the demo anyway.
Heights preservation ordnance Janice Evans-Davis, who’s sending out emails and posting on local bulletin boards about the property, toured it this morning:
A reader sends in this photo from the corner of Union and Henderson Sts. in the Old Sixth Ward, one block off Washington Ave. And comments:
Anyone in the market for a FREE house? This caught my eye on my way home [yesterday] and made me laugh out loud. I knew it was a rough sellers market but wow – FREE?
Sorry about the ghost images in the picture – I got so excited about a FREE house that I forgot to roll down the car window before snapping the shot!
The home dates to 1890, and was sold in October of last year. This past April, the city historical commission denied the owner’s request for a “certificate of appropriateness” to tear it down.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Who’s gonna decide whether First Montrose Commons gets its historic designation? HISD. At least that’s what FMC Neighborhood Association president Jason Ginsburg says in a letter he sent out earlier this week to HISD board trustees:
Without HISD’s participation, the resulting shortfall in committed land area would require our Association to gain the consent of a vast majority of the other FMC property owners, which is a practically impossible burden that goes far beyond the original intent of the historic district ordinance. But, with HISD’s participation, our Association will be able to fulfill all of the requirements necessary to achieve a historic district designation. Simply put, HISD’s decision with regard to our Association’s petition will either make or break FMC’s proposed historic district. [Italics in original]
To become eligible for historic designation, a district only needs the signatures of property owners representing 51 percent of its land area. More than 50 percent of First Montrose Commons landowners have already signed on to become a historic district. But the High School for the Performing and Visual Arts (!) takes up a huge chunk of First Montrose Commons, skewing those numbers.
- Letter to HISD Board of Education President and District IX Trustee Lawrence Marshall (PDF) [First Montrose Commons]
- 1st Montrose Commons asks HISD to back historic district [River Oaks Examiner]
- An Historic Effort To Preserve Our Neighborhood (PDF) [First Montrose Commons]
Map of proposed FMC Historic District: First Montrose Commons
HISTORIC WIN FOR AUDUBON PLACE City council voted last week to designate Audubon Place Houston’s 13th Historic District. The district stretches north of W. Alabama roughly to Hawthorne, between Roseland and Audubon Place. [Guidry News; map (PDF)]
The Magnolia Lofts, planned for the site of the former Ashland Tea House, has a new sales trailer at 1801 W. 18th St. in the Heights and a new, less ironic name. The project is now called Heights Esplanade I — though the development’s website throws in an odd extra apostrophe for good measure. Best news: The same website declares that “At the Esplanade, urban loft living will take on a new meaning.” The building will be four stories high, contain forty condos, and sit on a two-story “partially submerged” garage.
A HAIF reader who stopped by the sales office reports that Conroe-area builders Garrett Austen are planning two additional phases, with 80 and 120 more condos respectively.
After the jump: floor plans for Unit 403, on sale now for $261,118.
Can’t decide whether to buy a beauty salon, a small corner store, or maybe a bungalow? Why not get all three, in your very own North Norhill mixed-use compound? We’ll even throw in a garage apartment!
Just listed with Greenwood-King: a two-bedroom, one-bath bungalow at 1017 E. 16th St., a small store building next door, and a separate converted garage apartment. Downstairs in the garage apartment is a beauty salon with six stations, currently renting — sez listing agent Amanda Anhorn — for $500 each. The apartment upstairs goes for $500, and the shop on the corner has rented for $500 too.
Current owner lives in the bungalow and works out of the beauty salon.
All on a 8900-square-foot Norhill Historic District lot that fronts North Main. Continue reading for more photos — and the asking price — of the North Main Beauty Compound!
Here’s one of those great coincidences that makes watching Houston real estate so much fun:
- Avondale West just became Houston’s newest historic district! But . . . uh, it’s not a protected historic district.
- A big chunk of Avondale West is for sale! Adjacent lots 600, 606, 610, and 614 Avondale are in the new district; 520, 524, and 528 Westheimer aren’t. Together, they make
a total of 52,400 square feet in the heart of Montrose with frontage on Westheimer, Avondale and Stanford. Do not bother tenants, do not walk property with out notifying listing agent!
Asking price: $5 million. Being able to tell your new neighbors that you can tear down whatever history you want in their new district after 90 days: priceless.
- Avondale West city’s ninth historic district thanks to property owners’ three-year effort [Houston Chronicle]
- 606 Avondale St. [HAR]
Commenting on an article describing plans for a 40-unit condo building on the site of the former Ashland Tea House in the Heights, with another 40 townhouses and “garden villas” to be sprinkled around it later, Chronicle blogger Martin Hajovsky writes:
I remember when the Ashland Tea House, the McDonald Home, was demolished in 2005, the plan at the time was for a Victorian-themed restaurant to go there. The mere idea that someone would tear down a Victorian-themed restaurant to build a Victorian-themed restaurant struck me as the height of irony.
That memory came back reading the article because there’s a beautiful old magnolia on that site right now. It’s a perfect example of the species. Wonderful, fragrant, old and stately. If that tree survives the building of the “Magnolia Lofts,” it would be a miracle. Once again, irony triumphs.
Construction is expected to begin in August or September. The Magnolia Lofts will feature a tiny ground-floor commercial space—at 750 sf, even smaller than the average condo size of 900 sf—and two stories of parking, one of which the article describes as
“partially submerged” so the building would only appear to be five stories tall.
Maybe the developers should claim that the bottom level of parking is really at a normal level—although it’s underground, it is in the Heights.
Architect Tim Cisneros’s vague storybook sketch of the facade, though, has aroused the ire of Heights resident Mark White:
“While the description provided by the architect sounds like the building’s proposed style is in keeping with the Victorian-era architecture of the Heights, the initial drawings suggest a more ‘updated’ factory-turned-condo facade,” he said. “We would ask that the developer consider making a few changes to the style to make it more consistent with the architecture of the time period represented by the Heights neighborhood.”
By our estimate, that time period would be approximately 1891 to 2007, with the average construction date moving toward the present at a pretty steady clip.
- Heights growing more dense? Thoughts thereof… [Home in the Heights]
- Plans expand for Ashland Tea House site [Houston Chronicle]
- Magnolia Lofts [Cisneros Design Studio]
Neighborhood obliteration never really took off in the Sixth Ward the way it did in the Fourth. Maybe the experience is something developers can learn from as they set about tackling the Third Ward. In the meantime, a new proposal would seal the Old Sixth Ward Historic District’s fate, extending a six-month moratorium on demolitions.
Here’s the concept: instead of being a plain ol’ Historic District, most of the Sixth Ward neighborhood would be renamed as a Protected Historic District. An entirely new concept.
This would be okay, really. The neighborhood is mostly small old Victorian houses. You don’t get the really spectacular demolitions unless the buildings have some concrete or steel.
- Ban would prevent demolition of Old Sixth Ward buildings [Houston Chronicle]
- Memo to Sixth Ward residents [Houston Chronicle City Hall Blog]
Photo: 2015 Lubbock, available at Har.com
