09/20/11 9:15am

The facilities steering committee at UT’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has decided to demolish what’s left of the institution’s Houston Main Building at 1100 Holcombe Blvd. with several blasts of dynamite — before the end of the year. The announcement in an online employee-only newsletter cited safety concerns for the decision: “Manual demolition with jackhammers and blow torches would expose our employees, our patients, the public and dozens of construction workers to noise, dust and vibration for months. Implosion reduces that exposure to a matter of minutes.”

The 18-story Med Center structure was known as the Prudential Building before M.D. Anderson purchased it from the insurance company in 1975. It was vacated last year, and demo work on the building began this past April. The newsletter announcement also recaps the institution’s explanation for knocking down the structure, which was designed by Houston architect Kenneth Franzheim in 1952 as part of Houston’s first suburban office park:

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

09/19/11 12:49pm

Yes, Trader Joe’s wants to open what would likely be its first-ever Houston store at the long-vacant Alabama Theater at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr. — the vacant retail space last used as the home of the Alabama Bookstop. Nancy Sarnoff digs up the proposal for exterior alterations to the designated city landmark sent to the archeological and historical commission by shopping-center owner Weingarten Realty; the changes have already been approved by city staff. Included in the plans: Two big store signs on top of the marquee facing Shepherd . . . and a brand-new turret at the back entrance.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

09/06/11 9:39am

Construction fencing has already gone up around the Central Presbyterian Church at 3788 Richmond near Greenway Plaza, a reader reports. The Modern church campus was designed in 1962 by Wilson, Morris, Crain and Anderson — just a few years before the same local architecture firm set to work on a small project called the Astrodome. Two years ago the congregation moved a couple miles northwest to merge with the St. Philip Presbyterian Church, just outside the Loop on San Felipe. Houston Mod fans have been trying to save the vacant church from demolition ever since.

But the church buildings won’t be sticking around for long.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

06/29/11 10:52am

THREE NEW HISTORIC DISTRICTS APPROVED Glenbrook Valley, Heights South, and the Woodland Heights are the city’s newest historic districts, after city council voted to approve their long-lingering applications this morning. The votes were 9-5 for Woodland Heights and Heights South, and 10-4 for Glenbrook Valley. [Previously on Swamplot]

06/28/11 3:59pm

SINGING IT TO THE COUNCIL In advance of tomorrow’s scheduled vote on the fates of historic districts in Heights South, Glenbrook Valley, and Woodland Heights, supporters and opponents of historic designation in those neighborhoods have been pulling out all the stops at today’s city hall public comment hearing. [Justin Concepcion, via Twitter] Photo: Daniel

06/23/11 5:43pm

INSIDE THE HISTORIC BATTLE FOR GLENBROOK VALLEY The color-coded maps, the front-yard tombstones, the shivering naked women, the Ranches and MCMs, the prayer nooks, the free tacos, the threatening drive-by waves . . . it all comes out (well, some of it anyway) in Steve Jansen’s Glenbrook Valley exposé. [Houston Press; previously on Swamplot]

06/16/11 9:40pm

What’s happening with the old Rufus Cage Elementary School on Telephone Rd., just north of Lawndale? Some roof repairs, and . . . a possible sale? “Now we actually have some people that have interest in the property, but our concern is that the interest is in the land, not necessarily in the building,” HISD trustee Juliet Stipeche tells abc13’s Cynthia Cisneros. The Eastwood school, built in 1910, closed in the mid-1980s and is currently used as a storage facility by the school district. An organization called the Rufus Cage Educational Alliance is trying to find a public use for the building and its 1.021-acre site. A deal the school district had negotiated to sell Cage to Historic Houston fell through long before the nonprofit’s recent financial difficulties. Nine other school properties are listed for sale on the HISD real estate website.

Photo: Candace Garcia

05/10/11 2:44pm

The demo-photo tag team of Joe Lex and Kerwin McKenzie have more pics to share of the ongoing destruction at 1600 Louisiana St. downtown. But there’s more to their latest images than your run-of-the-mill demolition porn. Hidden behind the racquetball courts already pulled down on the southwest end of the former YMCA building, they claim: What looks to be the building’s original brick facade, before the courts were added. You can see what sure looks like an original exterior wall on the far left side of the image above, which shows the view from along Pease St.: Look for the lighter-colored brick structure with the engaged arches.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

05/06/11 11:04pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE $1 MILLION PROBLEM WITH RIVER OAKS MID-CENTURY MODERNS “River Oaks MCMs *always* go for lot value and get torn down. Sentimental owners think they should get a premium for the good architecture but it never happens. If they really care about the building they should price it at 900k and put a no teardown easement on it. Instead, they will lower the price by 100k every 3 months and 3 years from now it will be a Tuscan villa. (As a point of comparison, 59 Tiel Way, a Kamrath beauty which had a much larger, insanely off the hook lot, bigger, nicer, renovated house, was similarly priced – for 3 years he lowered the price slowly, and eventually was offering it on Ebay for 950 minus commission. No one bit and now, sadly, it is a clay lot that will likely sell in the mid 800s). Another comparitor is the MCM on North BLvd, also priced like this, slowly reduced for 3 years, now at 899k until the listing expired again. People like to admire MCM architecture but they don’t like to pay $1M for it. In Houston, at least.” [CAHBF, commenting on 1960 Preserved: River Oaks Mod Box Jumps into the Market]

05/04/11 12:26pm

After weeks of prep work, the bricks have at last begun coming down from the old YMCA building at 1600 Louisiana St. downtown. From his vantage point on the 18th floor of the office tower at 1600 Smith St., reader Joe Lex reports that major demolition started this morning — on the walls of the racquetball courts on the south-southwest side of the building.

Photos: Joe Lex (from above) and Kerwin McKenzie

04/28/11 11:41am

C’mon, we all know what the problem’s been with the old Art Deco River Oaks Shopping Center on West Gray, just east of Shepherd: The place was too black-and-white, the signs were too damn small, and it didn’t have enough turrets. Hey, nothing a little forehead lift and a generous slathering of EIFS can’t fix! Got some can’t-sell brick up there? Time for a little arch-ee-textural adjustment! It’ll look just like stucco — with all those control joints you love, plus they’ll be painting the new glop a nice Pearland-y mustard color. All that and a new wash of beige paint over the rest of the place should make folks driving in from newer suburbs feel more at home when they visit — and may have the added bonus of attracting a few of those nail salons and check-cashing outlets the place has been so sorely missing.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

04/12/11 6:05pm

If you’re the ghost of Kenneth Franzheim, scoot! Again. Cameraphone correspondent Pankaj reports that Cherry Demolition is already at work dismantling a second building designed by the Houston architect: the original Downtown YMCA at 1600 Louisiana St. Workers from the demo company have begun removing windows from the 10-story brick building; the property is now partially fenced. In 2008, as it announced plans to construct the new Tellepsen Y a few blocks to the east, the organization said it would tear down the 1941 structure in advance of selling the 85,000-sq.-ft. lot beneath it to Chevron, owners of the Enron hand-me-down tower next door.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

04/07/11 3:12pm

Last fall, the planned $500,000 rescue of a curved fresco painted by muralist Peter Hurd from the lobby of its Houston Main Building at 1100 Holcombe Blvd. was the focus of a small publicity campaign by UT’s M.D. Anderson Cancer Center. From the institution’s perspective it was probably a better story to focus attention on than the circumstances that instigated the move: the planned (and now active) demolition — despite the grumblings of many preservationists — of the 18-story 1952 Prudential Tower by Kenneth Franzheim that housed it. Since late January, when Linbeck (M.D. Anderson’s contractor) took the extraordinary step of firing fresco-conservation expert Nathan Zakheim from the job before the most delicate and proprietary portions of the process had been completed — and concerns were raised about how well the rescue could possibly be completed without him — the PR effort behind the tricky operation has been silent. Until today, that is.

CONTINUE READING THIS STORY

04/04/11 5:14pm

COMMENT OF THE DAY: ROCK ON, PRUDENTIAL DEMO “Although I am a huge proponent of keeping architecturally significant buildings intact and committing to their re-use, this building is an exception. I worked on some interior spaces in this building and although it was beautiful on the outside (as beautiful as a limestone monolith can be) the interior, with the exception of the first floor was awful. Low ceilings, large thick structural walls and narrow passageways gave it a feeling somewhere between a habitrail and a cave. It is also loaded with asbestos. MD Anderson is committed to keeping functional buildings, as they showed by adding to to top of the existing Alkek tower last year, rather than tearing it down. Houston Main Building really did have to go.” [LISA, commenting on Report: M.D. Anderson Begins Demolishing Med Center Icon; more recently on Swamplot]

04/01/11 3:47pm

Yes, it’s probably been a while since the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center’s 18-story Houston Main Building — the former Prudential Tower at 1100 Holcombe St. designed by Kenneth Franzheim — has had its windows washed. But that’s not what these guys on the gondolas are doing to the 59-year-old building. Off with the limestone! Hey, how’d that fresco come out?

Photo: Candace Garcia