COMMENT OF THE DAY: THE SAVOY HOTEL IMPLOSION YOU MISSED “I was across the street watching the tear down on and off for the 3rd day. They had a little trouble with the elevator shaft and the chimneys. Apparently the building was built pretty solid…2 foot thick brick walls. Yesterday they etched part of the bricks in the back and about half the building came down all at once by itself, rattling the ground and putting up a huge dust cloud. Part of the fire escape fell on the parking garage next door though.” [K. Brink, commenting on Emergency Demo: The Savoy Hotel’s Final Weekend Stay Downtown]
Sign up for the Newsletter
Tag: Downtown
DOWNTOWN’S PIGEON POOP POWDER KEG WILL NOT GO BOOM Swamplot reader ms. rosa reports on tonight’s scheduled demolition of the 1906 Savoy Apartments building (later the Savoy-Field Hotel) at Main St. and Pease Downtown: “Just spoke with Cherry [Demolition]. They will start tearing down the building tonight (Friday, October 2, 2009) at 7:00pm. It will not be imploded (as hoped!)” [Swamplot; previously]
City officials have decided to give the owner of the original 1906 Savoy Apartments building on Main St. Downtown an extra week to knock down the structure before going ahead with their own emergency demolition plan. The building’s owner — listed in Harris County records as Michael Nassif — will now have until midnight next Friday, October 2nd, to have a contractor of his own choice begin dismantling the structure. If that doesn’t happen, the city-selected contractor will complete the demo that weekend — and leave the property with a lien for the $448,600 cost.
While negotiations have focused on how quickly work can begin, residents of the Beaconsfield across Pease St. may be more interested in how long the demo will take — and how it will be done. Architect David Hall, who has studied the building for several developers, spoke to abc13 reporter Gene Apodaca about the asbestos embedded in the building’s crumbling interior plaster:
“It’s full of environmental issues. There are pathogens that are a result of the pigeon droppings, there are areas of the building I measured where pigeon droppings were six inches thick,” said Hall.
Houston’s first-ever highrise apartment building will be demolished next Friday, September 25th, a spokesman for the Houston Police Department announced today. Neighborhood Protection inspectors have determined that structural problems with the vacant-and-crumbling 1906 Savoy Apartments building (later the Savoy Hotel) require it to be taken down as quickly as possible. The Houston Press‘s Craig Malisow reports:
[HPD’s Mark Curran] said the police have had difficulty contacting the owner, who is currently in Lebanon. (Curran didn’t remember his name off-hand, but a 2007 Press story identified him as Michael Nassif). The owner has 10 days to file an appeal, Curran said.
The nearby Metro line will need to be closed during the demolition — hopefully not longer than Friday-Sunday, Curran said.
Curran also said that the building would be guarded continuously until it is torn down.
The original Savoy Houston’s first public building to have electricity. Not included in the demolition order: the building next door with the big Savoy Houston sign on top. After that portion was built in 1961, the entire complex was operated as the Savoy-Field Hotel.
- Emergency demo. of old Savoy Hotel [Twitter]
- Sayonara Savoy: Derelict Downtowner To Be Emergency Demo’d Soon [Hair Balls]
- More Details On The End Of (Part Of) The Savoy [Hair Balls]
- The Savoy Hotel / Apartments [HAIF]
Photo of 1906 Savoy Apartments, in front of 1961 Savoy-Field Hotel: Flickr user oooch2
Ah, the single life! This one-bedroom, 625-sq.-ft. take at 2016 Main appears to have every necessity in place, down to that single toothbrush artfully placed next to stainless-steel counter bowl. Ax the giveaway Downtown and Midtown views, and wouldn’t this have made an excellent candidate for Swamplot’s weekly Neighborhood Guessing Game?
Asking $129,750 — since mid-ish July. Maintenance fee is $510 a month.
COMMENT OF THE DAY: WRAP KNAPP WITH VELVET ROPE LINES “Good riddance! This landmark has for too long stood in the way of shiny-shirt progress. Think of how many bars with names like ‘Elite,’ ‘Wealth,’ or ‘Entitled’ you could fit on that property! For my money, I might just have to call [it] the Bourgeoises, in honor of the now defunct Proletariat. And by ‘in honor of’ I mean ‘urinating upon the memory of.’†[Nord, commenting on GM Wants To Take Away Knapp]
On the list of dealerships General Motors intends to shut down: Knapp Chevrolet, at 815 Houston Ave. just south of Washington. Back in May, GM notified the longtime Downtown dealership of its intent to terminate its franchise agreement as of Halloween 2010.
Since then, the dealership’s owners have been trying to get the decision reversed: President Robert G. Knapp presented his case to a congressional subcommittee in July, after several appeals to the company were rejected. Knapp claims his dealership has been profitable, and that closing the dealership would significantly hobble GM’s local market share. Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee has gotten involved, introducing a bill in Congress that would make it easier for dealerships to appeal franchise terminations in court. Knapp is also collecting a list of supporters through an online petition to GM. More than 6,200 supporters have added their names to the list so far.
One of those supporters: The Greater Houston Preservation Alliance, fans of Knapp’s moderne corner building, completed in 1941, 2 years after the dealership was first established.
- SaveKnappChevy.com [Knapp Chevrolet, via Swamplot inbox]
- Testimony of Robert G. Knapp (PDF) [GHPA]
- Knapp Chevrolet Co. [Houston Deco]
- Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee Announces new initiative to save autodealers, Jobs [rblok]
- Automobile Dealers Fair Competition Act of 2009 (H.R. 3450) [Thomas]
Photo of Knapp Chevrolet: Chris Adams
THE SECRET TRAIN STATION HIDDEN DOWNTOWN “See, everyone in Houston thinks that our old train station was over by Enron Field (this blog does not recognize Minute Maid’s sponsorship deal) and that it’s been preserved as part of the ballpark. But actually, we had TWO stations – the Southern Pacific had their own, seperate from the Astros station, a mission/art deco fusion with beautiful murals on the walls and great big arched windows. Pictures of the place . . . are few and far between, but the ones I’ve seen show something that rivals LA Union Terminal or [Philadelphia’s 30th St. Station.] That station was torn down to make way for the Barbara Jordan [Post Office], except that ONLY THE WAITING ROOM WAS TORN DOWN. The whole mess of platforms and switchtracks that goes along with an art deco station building is still there, behind the post office, rusted and overgrown but still in existence as a huge chunk of UP-owned real estate.” [Keep Houston Houston]
When the building is finished in 2011, what will wayward pedestrians poking past the new Houston Ballet Center for Dance from the intersection of Congress and Smith streets Downtown be able to glimpse of the action inside?
. . . the architects . . . envisioned the granite like a proscenium stage, framing views from the street through windows on several floors of the north and west facades.
Those windows, [Gensler managing principal James] Furr added, are like a “billboard for dance,†enabling passersby to see classes and rehearsals.
Furr spoke to the Chronicle‘s Molly Glentzer, and Gensler provided more-up-to-date images of the 115,000-sq.-ft. facility, which will be clad in black granite on one portion and “a light plaster” on the other:
How’s business going for that new emission-free all-electric text-us-and-we’ll-pick-you-up sorta-free Downtown shuttle service?
A little more than a year into it, REV Houston’s 3 Chrysler GEM vehicles are proving quite popular with . . . city investigators!
City officers have ticketed Rev Houston drivers at least 15 times this year, and plenty more last year. The citations, which average $150 to $200, are for offenses such as “no taxicab permit†and “no taxicab driver’s license.â€
“One of the offenses is ‘no fire extinguisher,’ †Ibarra said. “Our vehicles don’t have a single drop of combustible liquid, but the city feels we need to have a fire extinguisher. ‘No taxi meter’ is another one. We don’t charge a fare, so why should we have a taxi meter?â€
Tina Paez, the city’s deputy director of administration and regulatory affairs, said Ibarra’s vehicles have been cited as taxis because they take passengers.
“If they charge a fare or accept a gratuity, they are a vehicle for hire,†she said. “Even though they don’t technically charge, they come under the ordinance.â€
- His ‘green’ venture is costing a bit of green [Houston Chronicle, via Off the Kuff]
- REV Houston
- Previously on Swamplot: REV Houston: Street Illegal, Tips Only: Downtown-to-Midtown Zero-Emission Shuttle
DOWNTOWN LUNCH BREAKS Timpano’s Chop House, at the corner of Main and Texas, shut down last week — meeting the same fate as its predecessor, Bossa. Where will expense-account lunchers go now? “In the shadow of Timpano’s sudden closure skulks a disheartening Houston restaurant trend: the precipitous decline of the downtown business lunch. This spring, such expense-account stalwarts as Voice (in the Hotel Icon) and 17 (in the Alden-Houston Hotel) have eliminated lunch service entirely. On April 1, Spencer’s for Steaks and Chops in the Hilton of the Americas–the premium restaurant in Houston’s largest convention hotel–gave up on lunch service and moved its official opening time to 2 p.m.” [Cook’s Tour]
Shhhh!!! The curtain hasn’t gone up yet on the new Center for Dance the Houston Ballet is constructing at 601 Preston St., between Louisiana and Smith, at the northern end of Downtown. There have been no big public announcements about the project, no local news stories, nada. But it looks like preliminary construction work on the building has already begun.
Yes, the new Ballet building is the mystery construction project Abc13 reporter Miya Shay posted in her Twitter feed yesterday, prompting an impromptu guessing game here. After some smart guesses from Swamplot readers and Tweeters, Shay revealed the answer this morning. In a later tweet, she gave a few more details: that fundraising for the building had reached more than 50 percent of the organization’s goal and that the building’s skybridge — which would connect it directly to the Wortham Center, so performers’ ballet shoes wouldn’t have to touch the street — was “def[initely] in.”
Shay also posted a second photo showing work going on at the construction site:
Reader Jeromy Murphy sends in this photo he took this morning along the banks of Buffalo Bayou, from the jogging path in Buffalo Bayou Park under I-45. What’s going on over there across the water?
While walking back to my office from a downtown meeting, I noticed workers installing new sod along the Bayou. I wonder how long this will last considering the weather report? Anyone along the ship channel need some new sod? It’s probably headed their way.
What’s wrong with a little sod freshening?
A longtime fan of the rotating Spindletop Restaurant perched on top of the Hyatt Regency Hotel Downtown writes in to note the passing . . . of the restaurant’s website:
I last called them in January to see about a reservation but they were still closed from Hurricane Ike. The gentleman who answered insisted they would re-open someday soon and I was intrigued. I continued checking their website for an announcement every few weeks but it never arrived and then the site itself disappeared Sadly, when websites revert to parking pages, it’s all but assured the business behind them has folded.
If the Spindletop is indeed gone, a slowly revolving icon of Houston’s oil boom days, what would the Hyatt do with such a, umm, unique structure perched atop it’s hotel? Landry’s Heliport and Cloud Bar? Rennovate it to become *the* foremost penthouse in the city? “Hey baby, not just the bed rotates, but the whole penthouse!” Perhaps just another semi-adequate restaurant with a unique and stunning view?
What was the city perch like in its glory pre-Ike days?
And suddenly, Houston Pavilions gets some action:
NRG Texas and Reliant, NRG’s retail electric company, have agreed to lease 240,000 square feet of the 11-story Pavilions Tower, which comprises most of the building at 1201 Fannin.
NRG/Reliant will take 10 floors. The law firm Sheehy, Serpe & Ware has the top floor.
The bottom three floors of Pavilions Tower have always been designated as “swing space,†which could have been used for retail or office space, Houston Pavilions co-developer Geoff Jones said. NRG/Reliant will take all of the swing space, as well as some additional space on the second floor that initially had been designated for retail, Jones said.
How much of that lonely and vacant retail “additional space” on the second floor is being turned into office space?
