Stop, children. What’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down:
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Tag: Demolitions
Something to say. A few things to demolish:
Checking in from a center lane of I-10 heading east, a longtime Swamplot correspondent has a few questions for informed readers:
This ginormous new billboard structure went up last week at the CBS Outdoor HQ on Studemont at I-10. Is it legal? Was there a similar steel mega-billboard there before the remodeling of I-10, which obliged CBS (then Clear Channel Outdoor) to demolish part of the north end of its building? And what will become of this monstrous two-legged wedge-shaped structure when the feeder road will eventually be extended from Studewood to Taylor — will it be taken down, moved 100 feet and set up again?
Update: As noted in the comments, Off the Kuff has a slightly earlier photo of the naked billboard.
Photo: Swamplot inbox
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
At last, here’s a decent haul:
COMMENT OF THE DAY: CHIN UP, WEINGARTEN! “I don’t totally understand Weingarten’s defensiveness here. After all, they totally earned the wrath of people in the community who would like to see older, architecturally significant buildings preserved in some fashion when they tore down the north side of the shopping center at Shepherd and Gray. They made a calculation then that peoples’ upset feelings would not outweigh the financial benefit. Given this, why do they care what people think now? Did the negative publicity before actually hurt them in any material way? (I’ve made a point of not shopping at the new B&N even though I am a compulsive book-buyer, but I have no illusions that me and people like me have any impact on their bottom line.)” [RWB, commenting on Weingarten Exec Blames Those Alabama Theater Demolition Drawings on Staples]
HOUSTON’S DAY OF DESTRUCTION IS LESS THAN 2 MONTHS AWAY Grab your front-end loaders and join the fun! From Mayor Parker’s Wednesday State of the City address: “As part of my desire to make our neighborhoods safer, I am declaring Demolition Day in Houston. 200 abandoned, dangerous buildings and crack houses located across this city will come down on this day, targeted for May 22nd. This would not be possible without the help of the Houston Contractors Association, which is donating the demolition services for this effort. It’s a win-win-win: good for neighborhoods, good for public safety and good for public health.” [Mayor’s Office, via Swamplot commenter Matt]
Today’s Houston Business Journal features a rather surprising statement from a Weingarten Realty executive about the company’s recent plans for the vacant Alabama Theater. Late last month you’ll remember, Swamplot broke the story that a local construction company was obtaining bids from subcontractors for an extensive interior demolition of the vacant 1939 Art Deco movie theater at 2922 South Shepherd Dr. — using drawings prepared for Weingarten Realty by a local architecture firm.
Since that time, representatives of Weingarten, a publicly traded REIT, have been pushing back on the story to local reporters with a series of carefully worded statements. One such statement, delivered to both Swamplot and its readers the same day the story broke, by a spokesperson under contract to Weingarten, was typical: Weingarten, Swamplot was told, “can’t verify the authenticity of the drawings you posted on your blog one way or the other.”
Aw, shucks. And yet — if this statement in today’s HBJ is to be believed — it appears they certainly could have verified them:
Patti Bender, executive vice president with Weingarten, says the preliminary design that recently hit the streets was part of a site pricing analysis conducted by Staples.
Oh . . . does that mean Weingarten had no part in producing those drawings that showed exactly how the theater was to be gutted and its sloping floor encased in concrete? It was all Staples’s doing? Of course, those of you who have been following the story here on Swamplot realize there are just a couple problems with that statement:
Can you smell the demos we’re cooking? Catch a whiff of these:
Intrepid River Oaks Examiner reporter Michael Reed tries to get answers to that nagging question on the mind of every person who’s walked or driven by the vacant site of the former Wilshire Village Apartments on Dunlavy near West Alabama in the last month: What’s the deal with that little square of land in the back of the site that’s been taped off with a handwritten address sign?
Since the yellow tape was not in the shape of a fallen body, our first guess was the little cordoned-off area had something to do with some “truly odd†city code. . . . Perhaps it involved an obscure extremely minimum lot size ordinance, an idea we soon discarded because it almost made sense.
Carefully attuned to Wilshire Village’s well-documented vortex of absurdity, and being careful — professional journalist that he is — not to trespass on the site, Reed takes a photo of the city green tag on the sign while standing on the public sidewalk. Then, all David Hemmings-like, takes it home to enlarge it and read what it says:
Just four piddling jobs today. Wake us up when things get back in gear.
In a letter published in today’s Chronicle, the PR director for Staples goes beyond her previous “we do not have a lease” statement and says the national office-supply chain is done with the idea of putting one of its stores in the vacant former Alabama Theater on South Shepherd at West Alabama — for now, at least:
. . . we are not currently considering a store at this site. We typically don’t comment about sites unless and until leases are signed, but we understand that this property represents a unique situation of local concern.
So what prompted theater owner Weingarten Realty to have a local architecture firm draw up plans for a complete interior scraping of the 1939 Art Deco theater — and arrange for at least one local construction firm solicit demolition bids based on it?
More dilly-dallying when there’s real work to be done. Three houses and a garage a day won’t get us anywhere.
You call this demolition? This is just . . . gnawing. C’mon, put some heart into it, chumps!
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Question for the day: How much easier is it to knock buildings down when they’re conveniently located next to each other?
How about we focus on just a few crushed properties at a time? Try these for now: