The half-empty strip center left over from a series of unfortunate redos of City Hall architect Joseph Finger’s 1937 Tower Community Center (which once served as an art-deco companion piece to the former Tower Theater across the street) is now under contract to a new owner, along with the entire 2.86-acre block at the southwest corner of Westheimer and Montrose. That’s the word from a posting on the property’s listing site noted by Going Up! City, but the listing brokers at HFF aren’t providing any additional information.
Unless someone wants to spill the beans on the purchaser’s identity or any plans for the current home of Half Price Books, Spec’s, Papa John’s, and 3-6-9 China Bistro (along with the standalone Jack-in-the-Box at Montrose and Lovett) before then, you’ll have to wait until the seller issues a press release — which will happen sometime next week, a source tells Swamplot — for additional details. The property went on the market in early March.
Weingarten Realty is preparing reporters for a photo op in front of the Alabama Theater at 2922 S. Shepherd Dr. now being outfitted for a Trader Joe’s. The letters spelling “Alabama” that the company had 
Bubba, the cockroach enshrined in an enormous neon sign for Holder’s Pest Control, which stood guard for years along Westpark next to the Southwest Freeway, will not return to the Houston skyline, the company reports. The 8-ft.-by-16-ft. sign was taken down in 2004, after Holder’s relocated. But after almost 8 years of residence in a company warehouse, the sign was “cut up and hauled off for recycling” earlier this year, reports Travis Alford. 
What will happen to its well-shaded 44-story downtown headquarters building at 800 Bell St., once ExxonMobil decamps for the 
