A 38,000-sq.-ft. LA Fitness gym and health club and a larger separate multi-level parking garage are planned for the site of the Westbury Centerette, a vacant early-sixties shopping center on West Bellfort St. just east of Chimney Rock. The development would take up the entire block surrounded by West Bellfort, Chimney Rock, Cedarhurst Dr., and Moonlight Dr. — except for the AutoZone and WingStreet at the southwest corner. Plans submitted to the city show the LA Fitness backing up to Moonlight Dr. and facing a row of parking accessed from West Bellfort; the 263-space garage would sit at the corner of Chimney Rock and Cedarhurst:
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The plans were submitted as part of a variance application; the developer, identified as Samantha Fitness, is requesting a reduction of the required 25-ft. setback along Chimney Rock Rd. to just 10 ft. A planning commission hearing is scheduled for October 16th.
- Westbury Centerette [arch-ive.org]
Photos:Â Steven Gilbert
The gentrification of the Westbury area has been slow and steady for a while. Hopefully this fitness center is a sign that the retail action on W Bellfort and S Post Oak will be catching up to the incomes of the area
I can’t help myself but to wax nostalgic for spots like this. It doesn’t make any sense. I would never want to own something like this except to get at the land. Nevertheless, I really hope that places like this in the second-ring suburbs are appreciated enough to be thoroughly photodocumented before their inevitable and necessary demise.
Judging from Satelite imagery, I think the City should have no problem granting a setback variance along Chimney Rock – but I do hope they require a trade off of a bigger setback along Moonlight Drive. There are houses that front onto that street, and they’re going to be staring at the back side of the gym now. There ought to be some trees or landscaping to soften that.
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Of course, I’m just a Monday Morning quarter back on Swamplot – in no way a PD staffer or related to one.
I’m a nearby resident. No, I don’t approve of the reduced set back. Especially considering it’s for a parking lot. The area facing Chimney Rock should be heavily gardened and planted – and maintained – to reduce the blight on the neighborhood from this project.
I can’t help myself but to wax nostalgic for spots like this. It doesn’t make any sense. I would never want to own something like this except to get at the land. Nevertheless, I really hope that places like this in the second-ring suburbs are appreciated enough to be thoroughly photodocumented before their inevitable and necessary demise.
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You’re waxing nostalgic about a dilapidated old strip center? Are you thinking about Westbury Square perhaps?
The area facing Chimney Rock should be heavily gardened and planted – and maintained – to reduce the blight on the neighborhood from this project.
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The “blight” on the neighborhood was caused by the previous project. Some plants would be nice though.
Good news for a dilapidated site, I hope they are able to get the signed saved somehow for someone somewhere. I do think they need to keep the set back’s to where there are supposed to be. NOW if we can find out what all the surveyors where doing this week at Westbury Square where the horrifying remnants of the original Mixed Used development once stood. I asked them and they said it was for a sale. Fingers crossed it is something wonderful. maybe a Whole Foods! LOL.
I’m pleased about this development. We nearly bought a house on Cedarhurst last year, and I remember being concerned about the Westbury Centerette. Our realtor assured us the area was primed for redevelopment, so it’s nice to see his prediction came true. An LA Fitness isn’t ideal, but it’s better than what was there. It’s too bad the Centerette wasn’t properly maintained, but I guess it was a casualty of the 80s real estate crash. Now here’s hoping the developers plant lots of trees and bushes to make the space more attractive.
A shame about the center, but that boat sailed decades ago. Anything useful now will be an huge improvement.
Wait. A 263 space parking garage? Isn’t that a little….optimistic?
While I am glad something new is going in that intersection, a gym is NOT what the neighborhood needs. We desperately need our own enclave of nice family restaurants, a neighborhood ice house, cafes with outdoor seating….. anything that doesn’t make us drive 20 minutes just to enjoy a meal or a drink in a nice setting.
i’m ok with this as a resident of Westbury. Too many neglected/derelict buildings that need to go. The only charm about them is the old timer’s stories about their glory days. I hope they can replace Westbury Square with some nice retail outlets too.
No, no, I’m definitely not thinking of Westbury Square. I like this modest low-slung little Centerette. I find it charming; and even in its current state, much more attractive and benign than a new 24 Hour Fitness. It’s also physically and functionally obsolete.
I live two blocks from here and am happy something is going here. The neighborhood is almost completely young professionals now and we need development. But please, developers, bring us local restaurants! We have to drive 20 mins to eat something decent!
Westbury Square was a terrible loss, but this Centerette really had been allowed to fall into an appalling state of disrepair. I agree, I hope someone saves the sign. The neighborhood should lobby LA Fitness to be sensitive to neighborhood around it, obviously the original homes were plated to work in cohesion with the Centerette, not some hulking garage next to a huge box. In fairness tho, almost anything is an improvement to this eyesore.
The LA Fitness should help stimulate additional development including casual dining.
I grew up in Westbury and it’s good to see the reversal of its decline.
I was thinking on this some, and no photojournalist could really do justice to the sensory experience of a property like this humble Centerette. I’ve never been on its premises, but I’ve been on the premises of dozens of properties very much like it, inside and out, in front and in back and on top, in stores that are still open (hanging on by a thread, it seems) and in stores that have long been defunct and that are strewn with debris and litter — but not often in a stripped-down shell space because it so rarely makes sense to go through the trouble of providing for tenant improvements. There is a particular smell that is unique to structures of this vintage. Even those that are better-maintained and more consistently climate-controlled would take on the aroma. The air seems denser, and it is no doubt more humid than in most other buildings; but perhaps it also contains some minute quantity or irritants. The same could be said for its interior as its exterior. The composition of its roof and its parking lot are different from a newer building too, and so a warm drizzle on a hot day unleashes a front of volatile organics that combine into atmospheric water vapor to assault the senses. I am nostalgic about that too.
But besides that. I suppose that when it comes right down to it, I don’t much care for douchebaggery and I am resentful of people that consider an inactive Centerette to be blight by comparison with a 24-hour gym. The Centerette and its condition is merely an artifact of a different couple of eras, just as the complainants themselves are artifacts of a third era. Every era and every participant might be construed as a form of blight on the landscape or indeed on humanity. Its all a matter of one’s perspective(s).
@niche. I respect and appreciate your advovating for this Centerette, however what I don’t appreciate is your resorting to offensive rehetotic in relation to those who may not have your odd sense of attachment to the smells of dampness and mold. I appreciate the look of this mid century building and I hope they keep the sign and I also hope the neighborhood makes LA fitness make the new building as harmonious as possible to the houses around it. No doubt this modest Centerette is a better fit, but it’s been sitting idol for a long time and has become blighted. It’s to be lamented that a developer couldn’t be found to save it, however I don’t think a person in Westbury happy about a blighted site being developed should be issued a pejorative simple because they don’t agree with you.
I just bought the sign.
Save the sign!
@ Shannon: I’m by no means an advocate for this Centerette. I would certainly have demolished it by now if I had become its owner at any point in its recent history. My little soliloquy is merely the thought running through my head, a benign musing that doesn’t exempt anybody or any type of person or any specific person, including myself, from criticism. Deal with it.
Maybe all the commentors can get together and open a trendy restaurant nearby. Call it “Westbury Centerette”! “J” apparently has the sign ready for re-use!
This strip center has long been the subject of articles in the Westbury Crier. According to those, the owner lives in Mexico and has refused to take care of the property or sell it for a long time. Anyone who has been to the site will understand that it is an abandoned building that needs to be torn down or refurbished. The sign is charming, but the building is an eyesore.
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To everyone asking for restaurants, well, perhaps you should open some. I promise to try them all at least once.
My uncle used to work at a baskin robins that was there in the 60’s and 70’s. It’s been sitting vacant as long as I’ve been alive.
Glad to see something new going there, but bummed its another gym. Those are magnets for car break-ins. Hope they got some good lighting and cameras!
Good to see something going in there but that lot is really to small to fit a gym and a 25 to 35 car spot parking lot. So will they be shutting down part of ceaderhurst clsoing the Autozone Pizza Hut and the Discount Tire if they close all of this I could see there being enough space to build the gym and parking lot.
@Brian D:
They are replatting a whole bunch of stuff. The gym will be 38,000 sq ft, the garage will house 263 cars (as stated in the article.) Autozone and Pizza Hut will stay. Discount Tire will be across the street.
i remember the baskin robbins, but more importantly for me growing up, there was baseball card shop in this complex. don’t see any of those stores anymore. . . .
I’m with you on the baseball cards. I have a Will Clark and Mark McGuire Rookie Card….combined they’re ….worthless.
When I was a kid, I used to ride my bike over here to the baseball card shop. If I remember correctly, it was called Sports Collectibles of Houston. Once I was in high school, my buddies and I would frequent the Stop ‘n Rob in this same shopping center to buy beer, cigarettes and snuff. In fact, I got pulled over in this parking lot for my first speeding ticket racing home from Butler Stadium. Good times.
Also getting blown up are the abandoned Exxon station and the crappy car chop shop. Gonna say it’s worth losing the Centerette just for that. Say what you will about the Discount Tire, Pizza Hut, and AutoZone, they are decent thriving businesses. This area could use a Bork.
I’ve owned a home in the area for over 12 years. I’ve been dreaming of the day when the Westbury Centerette would be redeveloped. It’s been an eyesore for much too long. An LA Fitness isn’t ideal, but it is a huge improvement over what it is now. Once they redevelop it, it will only be a matter of time before Westbury Square is demolished and redeveloped….hopefully with a nice high-end grocery store and better retail.
I glad to know that westbury is starting to improve. LA Fitness is a good start.
I am so excited to see change and growth! I wish it were something different than an LA Fitness but hopefully this will stimulate the area and bring new restaurants or an ice house. Are LA Fitness gyms open 24 hours? I didn’t think they were. Also, I hope the trend/development continues to move West. I grew up around this area, work in the medical center, and purchased my home in a nice neighborhood (because I didn’t want an hour commute from the burbs) but the surrounding area is seedy. I’m also excited about Willow Waterhole! I won’t have to travel to Memorial Park to get in a good run and the scenery at this park is going to be beautiful!