The walls came down last week at the southwest corner of Edloe and W. Alabama streets, in the wake of a demo permit issued the week before. A few readers had eyes and lenses on the spot, which is currently listed for lease on LoopNet as 3000 Alabama Ct. but goes by 3501 W. Alabama in other county records. The walled complex (shown mid-teardown at the start of last week) was sold to St. Luke’s in 2009 by Metsun Senior Living, though it’s rumored to have been a former residence of deceased Greenway Plaza mastermind Kenneth Schnitzer.
St. Luke’s, whose main land holding sits catty-corner to the Alabama Ct. property, also owns the office park across Edloe, visible to the east of the freshly-emptied lot in this shot below from later last week:
***
The county lists one the now-departed structures long hidden behind the wall as dating back to 1965, with another building listed on the property listed as 1992 construction. The swimming pool, formerly located about where the pile of rubble can be seen in the background of the shot below, was filled in shortly after St. Luke’s bought the land:
The land is located next to Lacrosse Unlimited in the strip center at 3601 W. Alabama; the 3-story office building at 3100 Edloe can also be seen in the background above.
- 3000 Alabama Court [LoopNet]
- Previously on Swamplot:Â Daily Demolition Report: Chucked on Cheshire
Photos: Joseph Manley (first), MontroseResident (second and third)
That property WAS Kenneth Schnitzer, Sr’s former walled townhouse like compound. He lived there after he divorced Joan Weingarten Schnitzer back in the day. He was allegedly tied in with the Mafia ..I was cycling last weekend south bound on Edloe ,rolled up to W.Alabama and quickly realized the building was scrapped off the lot. It’s the Houston syndrome: tear down the old , build it new. Certain structures do NEED to replaced . And that was an example.
I can confirm the above poster’s remark about the compound being the home of Kenneth Schnitzer’s house. A family member that worked with him told me it was built in response to one of their children being kidnapped out of a River Oaks mansion the family resided in prior to the construction of the walled compound. The walls were equipped with some kind of primitive ’70s era system of pole-mounted sensors that could detect intruders if they tried to jump the walls.
The alleged mafia ties are news to me. I understood his ventures to be funded by investments for a number of large insurance companies.
So many rumors about that place when I was a kid before Google Earth showed just a parking lot
I’m so glad that ridiculous wall is gone. It was a hard corner to navigate – and whatever is built will have to be set back some from that corner.
I recall about five years ago during lunch, a co-worker and I were crusing the area and went down Alabama Ct; we could see the complex from our Greenway Plaza offices. It was always a mystery to us, it looked like some sort of halfway house from the outside, with huge old-style cameras mounted at each corner. The security technology was dated for sure.
Anyhow, while driving down the short street, we saw a guy come out of the place, and we stopped him because we never had seen anyone there. It turns out it was just some maintenance guy, he said no one lived there anymore, but the place still had all the utilities, he was doing some sort of electrical work. His version of the reason for existence differed a bit, he said the old man was paranoid, and built it to protect himself. Maybe he meant the son, who knows. We asked him if it was for sale, he laughed and said you and everyone else who stops by. This was five, six years ago now.
MontroseResident