Institutional Buildings

Construction Materials
03/22/11 1:59pm

Carefully Wrapped Stimulus Package: Rice’s New Brockman Hall for Physics

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Institutional Buildings, Openings and Closings, Rice University
18 Comments

A few days ahead of its scheduled public debut later this week, Swamplot photographer Candace Garcia got the new Brockman Hall for Physics to sit still for a brief photo session at its new Rice University home. (That wasn’t too difficult: The structure features underground labs specially outfitted to dampen vibrations.) For the occasion, the university’s newest model chose several different outfits: a gridded terracotta rainscreen over a slip of colored aluminum composite cladding on its southern face, a patterned glass curtain wall silk-screened with a Penrose pattern on the north, and underneath, some plain concrete leggings:

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Art
12/10/10 12:05pm

Peter C. Marzio’s Unfinished Business at the MFAH

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Institutional Buildings, Museum District, Museums, Proposed Developments, Quicklink
5 Comments

PETER C. MARZIO’S UNFINISHED BUSINESS AT THE MFAH Count the creation of Isamu Noguchi’s Cullen Sculpture Garden, the addition of the Rienzi estate, and construction of the Rafael Moneo-designed Beck Building as just a few of the accomplishments of the Museum of Fine Arts’ longtime director, who died last night at the age of 67. But more was being planned: “At the time of his death, Marzio was working toward the goal of a third building for modern and contemporary art, which he envisioned as presenting a global view of art movements in the Americas, Europe and Asia. He called his plans for the third building the most intellectually challenging work of his career.” [29-95]

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Institutional Buildings
10/28/10 2:12pm

Two New Towers for the Harris County Hospital District

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Kashmere Gardens, Medical Buildings, New Construction, Parking, Texas Medical Center
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Budget considerations ended up cutting the number of floors in the new ambulatory care center the Harris County Hospital District is about to build at its LBJ General Hospital campus north of 610, but the district is still calling the planned 3-story building a tower. A groundbreaking ceremony for the Ambulatory Care Tower (the low building shown in the center of the rendering above), a single-story connecting building that will link it to the existing hospital, and a similarly towering 3-story parking garage took place yesterday at 5656 Kelley St. on land owned by the district, portions of it the site of condemned housing lots.

Also claiming tower status, but with the extra credentials of 2 additional floors (with what looks like a little elevator cap at one end for good measure): the separate Ambulatory Care Tower the district is building on a former surface parking lot next to the hospital administration building at 2525 Holly Hall west of Almeda, closer to the Texas Medical Center. That building (pictured below) will house specialty clinics now located at Ben Taub as well as a radiation therapy center. A new 9-level parking garage serving both buildings opened last month:

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Harbordale
09/24/10 11:12am

The Largest Food Bank in the World Won’t Be Built from Scratch

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Houston Architects, Industrial Properties, Institutional Buildings, Renovations
4 Comments

From RdlR Architects: Drawings showing how the former Sysco Foods HQ on Portwall St. off I-10 just inside the East Loop will look when its transformation into what its sponsors claim will be the world’s largest food bank is complete. The Houston Food Bank bought the facility — which includes a 298,000-sq.-ft. warehouse and a 130,000-sq.-ft. freezer building — back in April, for $17 million. The nonprofit hopes to be able to distribute 120 million pounds of food annually by 2018.

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Demolitions
09/03/10 3:20pm

M.D. Anderson’s Mental Health Break

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Institutional Buildings, Medical Buildings, New Construction, Texas Medical Center
10 Comments

In from Swamplot roving photographer Candace Garcia: photos of the last moments of the UT Health Science Center’s Mental Science Institute at 1300 Moursund St. in the Med Center. The school’s department of psychiatry and behavioral sciences deserted the 1965 structure back in February, when it moved to a brand new 6-story Behavioral and Biomedical Sciences building near the corner of Cambridge and OST, south of the main Med Center campus in a new development dubbed UT Research Park. The vacant Moursund building was sold to the building executioners at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, who are now busy demolishing it “for future expansion.”

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Downtown
09/01/10 3:07pm

Metro’s Next Real Estate Deal

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Institutional Buildings, Office Space, Quicklink
3 Comments

METRO’S NEXT REAL ESTATE DEAL A tidbit from interim president and CEO George Greanias’s presentation to Metro’s new board yesterday: 2 entire floors of the transportation agency’s headquarters building just north of the Pierce Elevated at 1900 Main St. Downtown have been sitting vacant. For how long? That isn’t clear; the building was completed in 2005. Greanias’s suggestion: the floors “could be leased or occupied by Metro services now housed in other locations.” [Houston Chronicle; Hair Balls] Photo: Wikimedia Commons

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Comments
08/18/10 3:10pm

Comment of the Day: Graduating Valhalla

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Institutional Buildings, Leasing, Nightlife, Quicklink, Rice University
4 Comments

COMMENT OF THE DAY: GRADUATING VALHALLA “The Rice Thresher reported in 2009 that the administration was considering raising Valhalla’s rent by almost 250%. [Update: The actual proposed increase turned out to be 30 percent, taking into account existing fees; see comment below —Ed.] Since the staff is all-volunteer, the rent increase would be passed along in the price of beer, which is one of the main reasons to go to Valhalla of course. (The other being that Rice is the largest outdoor drinking area in Houston.) So even if the administration isn’t planning on taking Valhalla down all at once, it could be done in by a slow strangulation of rising costs.” [Katk, commenting on Rice Taking KTRU Off the Airwaves, Handing Over Humble Transmitter to KUHF]

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Institutional Buildings
08/17/10 11:20am

Parking Garage High: Where They’ll Stack 6 Levels of Cars at St. Thomas High School

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Magnolia Grove, New Construction, Parking
23 Comments

St. Thomas High School officials broke ground last week on what will likely be the most monumental garage in the long history of Houston secondary school parking. A 6-story, 433-space parking structure designed by Kirksey will rise at the southeast corner of the school’s Memorial-and-Shepherd campus. It’ll replace this dirt lot southwest of Granger Stadium and just north of Shepherd, allowing other parking areas on campus to be redeveloped. A couple rendered views of the finished product, some portion of which will likely be visible from Shepherd:

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Institutional Buildings
07/29/10 11:58am

Can’t Evict Them Before They Leave

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Neighborhood Disputes, Quicklink, Sharpstown
3 Comments

CAN’T EVICT THEM BEFORE THEY LEAVE District F city council member Al Hoang failed in his bid yesterday to have a justice of the peace evict an organization calling itself Vietnamese Community Services from the Vietnamese Community of Houston and Vicinities building across the street from Plazamericas in Sharpstown. In a hearing the Chronicle‘s Moises Mendoza describes as “bizarre,” Hoang told Judge Russ Ridgway the Vietnamese Community Services name sounds too much like that of the building’s owners, and that the result was “too confusing.” Hoang is a former president of the Vietnamese Community of Houston and Vicinities, which also goes by the acronym VNCH. In May, he helped the organization win city council approval of a $400,000 community development block grant — to renovate the VNCH building. “Although Vietnamese Community Services has been in the building for 18 months, Hoang said he only recently discovered it’s not calling itself Vietnamese Elders Association, as he believed it had been since the group first moved into the building at 7100 Clarewood Drive. Vietnamese Community Services offers hot meals and English classes, among other things, to elderly community members. Hoang has been demanding that Vietnamese Community Services change its name or move elsewhere for the last few months, but the executive director of the organization refuses to do that.” Earlier this week, that organization’s executive director, Kim Nguyen, told Chronicle columnist Lisa Falkenberg that her group had already planned to move to a new location next month, so that the building could be renovated. [Houston Chronicle; Falkenberg column]

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Buying and Selling
06/29/10 8:47am

HCC’s New Planned Parenthood

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Institutional Buildings, Midtown, Quicklink
4 Comments

HCC’S NEW PLANNED PARENTHOOD Houston Community College will take over guardianship of the land and buildings Planned Parenthood left behind when it moved to its new Gulf Fwy. headquarters. Nancy Sarnoff reports that HCC paid $5 million for 2 separate buildings plus parking lots on 2 acres of land on Fannin St. in Midtown, 2 blocks north of West Alabama. They’ll become part of HCC’s Central College campus: “[HCC vice chancellor Daniel] Seymour said it hasn’t been decided exactly how the college will use all the space, but the smaller building — formerly a bank before Planned Parenthood bought it – will be torn down because of structural problems. HCC also plans on consolidating operations currently in leased space downtown into the old Planned Parenthood building at 3601 Fannin.” [Houston Chronicle; previously on Swamplot]

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Institutional Buildings
06/11/10 12:01pm

Kipling Street Academy: Doubling Kid Parking Places in Montrose

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Montrose, Parking, Schools
10 Comments

A reader sends photos to document the advance of Montrose’s Kipling Street Academy. The 2-story private preschool was set back deep in the 50-ft.-wide residential lot at 1425 Kipling a few years ago. Now it’s expanding one lot further, to the corner of Mulberry St. Owner Jennifer Pierce bought the small apartment complex on that site last year and had it demolished. The finished building will feature a wide second-story gallery tiptoeing over the back row of parking spaces, leaving the front of both lots clear for cars and kiddie drop-offs:

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Commercial Real Estate
06/07/10 2:15pm

Waking the Mattress Giant: CAC Takes Village Plaza To Assess the Children

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Institutional Buildings, Land for Sale, Openings and Closings, Proposed Developments, Rice Village, Shopping Centers
3 Comments

Everybody out by the end of October, the owners of the Village Plaza Shopping Center have told all remaining tenants. Fuzzy’s Pizza and City Dance Studio, of course, are long gone from the center at 5925 Kirby, a block north of Rice Blvd. The Bike Barn has already picked out more than 10,000 sq. ft. in the former Hollywood Video in Weslayan Plaza, at Bissonnet and Weslayan. Kids Kuts will cut south to Bellaire and Stella Link; the UPS Store is looking at a new place “on Bissonnet.” Ticket Stop and Susan Nail & Facial are hunting for space nearby. Mattress Giant just doesn’t want to talk about it.

The property’s owner is its eastern neighbor, the Children’s Assessment Center. A planned expansion to the John M. O’Quinn campus, which now faces Bolsover, would eat the deeper chunk of the shopping center, leaving 0.8 acres on Kirby for somebody else to develop. Here’s the part that’s toast:

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Apartments
05/19/10 4:51pm

Early Exit: The Fire at the Downtown Y

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Demolitions, Downtown, Institutional Buildings, Land Sales
14 Comments

A reader sends us this view from the scene of the YMCA on Louisiana and Pease Downtown. A fire broke out in a resident’s room on the 9th floor of the 67-year-old building early this afternoon after someone left a lit candle unattended, according to news reports. YMCA officials tell Channel 2 News that 16 residents will need to be relocated as a result of the damages.

Of course, all 135 residents of the YMCA will need to be relocated after the new YMCA down the street at 808 Pease St. (at Milam) opens this October. The YMCA plans to demolish the Louisiana St. building, then sell the vacant 85,000-sq.-ft. property to Chevron, which owns the shiny former Enron building next door. The new Tellepsen Family Downtown YMCA now under construction contains no residences.

Late Update: Our correspondent sends in a later photo from the scene:

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Buying and Selling
04/28/10 9:00am

Some Very Large Buildings Now Owned by the Bank

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Harbordale, Industrial Properties, Institutional Buildings, Quicklink, Renovations
No Comments

SOME VERY LARGE BUILDINGS NOW OWNED BY THE BANK Oh, but this time it’s the Houston Food Bank, announcing it has finally acquired restaurant distribution giant Sysco Foods’ former warehouse facilities at 535 Portwall St., just northeast of the intersection of I-10 East and the Loop. Officials of the nonprofit organization are set to announce plans today for renovating the property into the largest food bank in the country. The Houston Food Bank paid $17 million for the complex, down from the $22 million quoted when the deal was first announced: “The acquisition included a 272,711-square foot warehouse, a 153,341 square-foot freezer building and a 15,870 square-foot truck center. . . . This deal had been in the works since 2007 when Sysco announced it was selling its storage warehouse to build a new one on the north side of town.” [Prime Property]

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Demolitions
03/08/10 4:44pm

Immanuel Lutheran: Okay, We Won’t Trash Our Old Church Building

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Historic Preservation, Houston Heights, Institutional Buildings, Neighborhood Disputes, Religious Facilities
1 Comment

The Greater Houston Preservation Alliance has sent out an email reporting that the congregation of the Immanuel Lutheran Church in the Heights voted in a special meeting this past weekend not to demolish its sanctuary building after all.

So what’s going to happen to the unused 1932 brick structure instead? Says the GHPA:

The Gothic Revival building on Cortlandt Street at East 15th Street will be used as flex space to accommodate church functions and Immanuel Lutheran School activities as well as community events.

Sure, it’s likely to make a great space for events. But how could any church function match an all-out building demo for fun?

The GHPA reports the congregation has committed to spending $150,000 on the rehab — about twice the cost of the demolition, which had already been scheduled for May. GHPA credits the 90-days-to-oblivion feature of the city’s otherwise toothless preservation ordinance for the save:

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