Frankie Mandola and Bubba Butera, the former owners of the shuttered State Grille, tell Houston Business Journal reporter Jennifer Dawson they’re planning to open an large, outdoorish event space just southeast of the former AstroWorld site:
Bayou City Event Center Pavilion will occupy 11 acres at 9500 Almeda in a primarily industrial area. Mandola says the site is near his customer base — the Texas Medical Center, Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo, Rice University and University of Houston.
Darryl Schroeder and Robert Steele, who owned the vacant land, are joint venture partners on the development.
The project includes a 15,000-square-foot covered pavilion that will be able to accommodate up to 1,000 people for crawfish boils, fish frys, barbecue dinners and the like. The open-air facility is slated to be finished in November. Phase II will be a 40,000-square-foot banquet facility with multiple rooms that can hold 100 to 1,600 people. Construction will start in October and is scheduled for completion in May 2010.
Here’s a plan of the compound, from the website of Houston’s Andria Design:
Comment of the Day: Astrodome Science Project
“. . . what a cool environmental study to see how long, and in what ways, nature completely takes the place over. I’d guess 25 years & it would be identifiable only to those who already know it - a full generation who would have never seen it in the first place. The roof would fall in and woody plants would find niches underneath it, long before the big doughnut of a parking lot would disappear. Grade-schoolers could take field-trips there & High School science projects would follow the Astrodome’s demise: How many years before nesting birds arrive? Does concrete break down faster than steel? Do cigarette butts ever decompose?” [movocelot, commenting on Comment of the Day: The Astrodome Mothball Savings Plan]