Just one target in today’s demolition derby:
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Tag: Demolitions
A little more Clay cleanup, a few more houses:
More Clay St. carnage in today’s edition. Map the mop-up from our campaign HQ, here:
Hidden upstairs in that new double-decker strip center on the south side of 59 between the Kirby CVS and the feeder-road Chick-Fil-A, nestled between a hair salon and a spa, is a brand-new recital hall, outfitted with a 7-foot-5 Hamburg Steinway Model C grand piano and room for up to 100 fans of fine classical music. Leave the curtains on the back wall open, and performers can appreciate a sweeping view of the freeway traffic as they play.
The hall is inside the brand-new Dowling Music, a gifts-and-sheet-music store run by concert pianist Richard Dowling, who recently returned to his hometown and bought the Houston branch of Pender’s Music (which Pender’s had bought from the local Wadler-Kaplan Music Shop in 2000).
The strip center and its neighbors were built on the former Kirby Dr. site of Westheimer Transfer & Storage, which former Rockets star Hakeem Olajuwon bought in 2002. Olajuwon demolished the building and flipped the land, parceling it out in pieces to suburban-style developers.
Dowling, who performs about 60 concerts a year around the world, can’t have expected much walk-in business from visitors patronizing other establishments in the strip center. Downstairs from his store is the Methodist Breast Imaging Center; an Israeli martial arts studio, a weight-loss clinic, a GolfTEC indoor golf clinic, and the Pasha Snoring & Sinus Center round out the second floor. But Dowling tells the West University Examiner‘s Steve Mark that traffic has doubled since he moved the store from its Portwest Dr. location:
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
We’re banging it up — East Downtown! Line ’em up:
Older buildings, standing in the way of progress: Let’s teach them a few lessons. Here’s a roundup of the day’s pupils:
In today’s report: A little more of that Regent Square-ish clearance. And more:
Hey, we got one! Smashing resumes here:
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
What’s going on with the demo reports? The city’s online databases haven’t been coughing up the latest permit info since the beginning of the month.
Where will the next demos be? We don’t know either: There’s still no permit info from the city databases. Yeah, suspense kills. Stay tuned.
Regularly scheduled demolitions will return as soon as technical difficulties with the city’s permit reporting system are resolved. We know you want your rubble. Thank you for your patience.
So sorry. No demos to report. Will try to do better tomorrow.
Update, 7/2: Your wish is granted: We got one!
There may be a buyer for Galveston’s Flagship Hotel, reports Laura Elder in the Galveston County Daily News. The hotel suffered about $7 million in damage from Hurricane Ike last year. But Landry’s Restaurants, the current owner, has a fallback plan in case the sale doesn’t go through:
If the 225-room property at 25th Street and Seawall Boulevard doesn’t sell, Landry’s likely would demolish the hotel and develop a “pleasure pier†with amusement rides, officials say. . . .
Landry’s is pricing demolition for the hotel, built in 1965 as a show of confidence after Hurricane Carla, Jeff Cantwell, senior vice president for development, said.
Perched on a pier overlooking the Gulf, the Flagship fell into disrepair on its own after 1990, when The Flagship Hotel Ltd. took over management.
Landry’s paid the city $500,000 for the hotel in 2004, saying it planned to spend $15 million transforming the property into an entertainment plaza with amusement rides, including a roller coaster.
Landry’s attempted to move ahead, but was stymied by agreements that gave Daniel Yeh, head of The Flagship Hotel Ltd., control of the hotel until 2031.
A trio of buildings fill up today’s shopping bag. Check out these one-time-only demo specials: