More Menil removals. And more gonnage here:
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Tag: Demolitions
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
And now, a few special after-Christmas clearance events, at these locations:
Behold Friday’s sodden wreckage of the northernmost 33 percent of the Richmont Square apartment complex at 1400 Richmond, which is currently being erased to make way for the Menil’s upcoming drawing institute.
Menil On The Move
As of December 10 heavy equipment was already on site at the southwest corner of W. Alabama St. and S. Shepherd Dr., where a bevy of venerable-by-Houston-standards small businesses — including quirky jewelers Fly High Little Bunny, laid-back Roeder’s Pub, a cat clinic and stray adoption center, and late-night hang Ruchi’s Taqueria — are eating it to make way for a CVS and a roughly 24,000 sq.-ft. pad site.
Back when news of the development broke, some Swamplot commenters criticized it, site-plan unseen, as overly suburban-looking for its location, just across W. Alabama from the old theater and adjoining strip mall that now houses Trader Joe’s.
And now developers Read-King have released the site plans:
Shepherding In A Katyville Corner
OH MY GOD! THEY KILLED KYLE! Here’s a view from the front row yesterday morning as the west side of Kyle Field comes a’-tumbling down, to the cheers, hullabaloo, and whoops of a crowd police estimated at 7,000. The Aggies are eager for the final phase of the school’s ongoing stadium renovation project to come to completion. After hauling off the 75,000 tons of debris, and rebuilding, the Aggies plan to have Kyle Field reopened — with a capacity of 102,51, the largest stadium in Texas — by September 12, when Ball State University’s gridiron warriors invade College Station in new Kyle Field’s debut. [Bryan-College Station Eagle; previously on Swamplot] Video: Ton Wagner
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
Had these houses bulldozed to the ground:
Swamplot’s Daily Demolition Report lists buildings that received City of Houston demolition permits the previous weekday.
In this competition, everyone goes down a winner. Here are today’s contestants:
Back in April, Swamplot asked whether, for $8.1 million, this 1941 River Oaks estate by architect Hiram Salisbury with a later addition by John Staub might be torn down to allow the construction of 2 newer mansions on the same property. Today, we have our answer: No. But for $7.2 million, the answer appears to have been yes — for the tearing-down part, at least. Yesterday, the city approved a demolition permit for the property, which changed hands in July.
Named a Texas Historic Landmark in 2001, the central part of the home was designed by Salisbury for attorney Thomas D. Anderson and his wife, Helen Sharp Anderson. In 1950, the Andersons had Staub design the home’s east wing. Mrs. Anderson died last year, 7 years after her husband. The listing, which featured carefully staged photos of the home’s well-tended grounds and interiors as well as its won’t-ward-off-bulldozers medal from the Texas Historical Commission, also noted that the River Oaks Property Owners association had already given approval for the 67,458-sq.-ft. lot to be subdivided.
Oligarchs in River Oaks
An excavator yesterday was hard at work scraping the 3300 block of the west side of Kirby clean.
Bounded by West Main St. and Colquitt St. and Lake St. to the rear, this block was long the site of a Settegast-Kopf funeral home, but like that seemingly straitlaced great-aunt with the closet full of empty gin bottles, the staid mortuary and adjacent buildings descended into drink, spending their final years as taverns Roak, Hendricks Pub, and the OTC Patio Bar.
Here’s what the Kirby frontage looked like in both its sober and lush incarnations:
Cremation By Excavator
