Like the Houstonaire Motor Inn, the Colonel Sanders’ Inn, and the Ramada Inn before it, the Greenway Inn and Suites on the south side of Hwy. 59 between Kirby Dr. and Buffalo Speedway is only a memory now. But it took more than a name change to off it: This redo is final. Thanks to a reader, we have these postcard-ready images from the final checkout proces over the weekend to remember it by. The buildings at 2929 Southwest Fwy. were built in 1965.
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- Colonel Sanders’ Inn/Houstonaire Motor Inn – Houston [arch-ive.org]
Photos: Swamplot inbox
Chickening Out
Good riddance.
Stayed there for a week in 1988 for a baseball camp. I remember it being in fairly good shape then, at least before it hosted about a hundred middle and high school boys for week. I believe it was a Ramada at the time.
I met and got autographs from Glenn Davis, Kevin Bass and Bill Doran at that camp.
I have lived next to that monstrocity since 03. Good F’n riddance !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Goodbye to all of the people that used to steal shopping carts from Krogers and HEB, and leave them under my window. Goodbye to all of the drunks that used to drink in the parking lots all hours of the day and night, and hassle our female tenants. Goodbye to the drug dealer in 143, and all of his customers. Won’t miss fishing stolen suitcases outta the dumpster where I live, and spend time reuniting the suitcases with the owners, always minus a laptop or three. Goodbye to the criminal that broke into my friends condo when we were there with HPD. Long story short, I had a chance to be the next George Zimmerman, but chose not to. If I would’ve known how utterly useless the HPD officer would’ve been, I may have reconsidered. I put my life on the line confronting him, and she won’t even go over next door to arrest him, even after I confronted him, and offered to ID him. And my biggest goodbye to the Third World POS who exploited his own people. I had words with him in March when this total pile of filth closed. I threatened him with physical violence, threw one of the abandoned shopping carts at him, and when I saw him recording me with his phone, I dropped my pants, shook my naked rear end, and told him to kiss my you know what. He said he was gonna call HPD on me. Yeah, right, like the cops were his best friend, what with them being over there on a daily basis. And to the crazy cat lady who continues to feed the nine stray cats left behind by the former cat loving tenants. When they come over , we will catch them, and take them to the city pound.
Oh, yeah, the rats abandoned ship last week. Our condos are inundated with rats. I saw three rats last week. So have several of my neighbors.
Wanna see what I have been tolerating the past eleven years? Click here: http://www.travelpod.com/hotel/Greenway_Plaza_Inn_And_Suites-Houston.html
My Facebook status from April 14th, 2013:https://www.facebook.com/ken.knisely/posts/819872544730269
Someone could use some anger management counseling.
Those reviews were incredible. One horrible one after another.
They moderators chose not to publish y comment where I linked to my Facebook page when I posted about how I confronted the burglar on April 14th, 2013. Wanna talk about anger !!!
How many of y’all would confront a burglar, and how many of y’all would go hide under the bed and cry ???
People get in my face, I give it right back to them. Anybody that knows me will testify toi that fact. And nobody that knows me messes with me. At least not twice.
If that makes me angry, then so be it
If you paid good $$$ for a condo, and had to live next to this flaming mess for eleven years, you’d be a tad bit angry too.
And after the burglary last year, I unleashed my full fury. I got the guy from Center Point Energy to go over there, and make the owner of the property personally clean up the mess his tenants made on the Center Point right of way. That was funny. It was also funny when I contacted David Bonem from Councilmember Ellen Cohen’s office, and the idiot owner of this toxic sewage ended up getting red tagged, and received a nice little bill after city crews spent two days cleaning up the graffiti and garbage those oh so lovely tenants (drug dealers, drug users, drunks, and criminals). Now THAT was funny !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Sad, another historic building in Houston razed. I guess no one cares about saving architectural awesome like this for our future generations.
I always wonder at TripAdvisor reviews that are so extraordinarily or consistently negative or positive. Its too easy for either a property manager or a pissed-off NIMBY asshole to game the system.
lol…..don’t worry it soon will be replaced with upscale high rise living that will force you and your condo dwelling neighbors to sell and head for cheaper pastures. In other words, what do you call the property next to the dump? Aww yes a dump.
From the sounds of it, even a used car lot sounds like it would be an improvement.
Having read the comments and the travelers’ reviews of the place, I have to say — while I don’t doubt that the Greenway Inn/Ramada was a horrible neighbor, I wonder at the wisdom of buying a condo in a then-40-year-old complex* on third busiest freeway segment in the state next door to a then-40-year-old rundown rathole of a fleabag motel. Looking at HCAD, it seems the price was probably right, but the phrase “due diligence” comes to mind.
*The motel and the condo complex were both built in 1965 according to HCAD.
The Niche: Are you calling me a pissed off NIMBY asshole? May I suggest you visit the Westheimer Stortefront in Montrose, ask any officer about 2929 Southwest Freeway, and see what they have to say about the place? THey will tell you many wonderful tales about the fine upstanding citizens who lived there on a weekly basis.
Simplysid: You know what they say about people that assume. We have known for at least for a year and a half that an Olive Garden is going in there. All you had to do is ask. Or look at the pick in the photo where Trammel Crow is advertising for the pad space located next to the Olive Garden. No highrise coming anytime soon. So my dump ghetto of a condo is safe for now
Yet another place doomed by the influx of Katrina refugees……….
coming soon.. another Olive Garden restaurant and new Bank
I have to laugh at anyone who says they are sad this building is gone. It was a filthy, run down, eyesore of a building and badly managed for at least the last two decades, if not longer. There was nothing “historic” or “awesome” about this motel. Even in 1965, it was nothing special. If it had been maintained and run properly all these years I might question the demolition but not under these circumstances. Again, good riddance!
@XCellKen: Sweet! Breadsticks!
wtf I loved that building how dare they
@david,
.
who are you to decide a building’s architectural worth? This thing may have been one of thousands in 1965, but if we don’t preserve at least one, that’s part of our collective cultural heritage lost to our short sightedness. We may as well abolish the historic districts now if we’re just going to pick and choose what parts of our towns not so special architecture to preserve.
GoogleMaster; Perhaps you are correct about my lack of due diligence vis a vis my neighbor. My bad
Did you know that I drive for a living? Specifically, I own a small limo company. Most of my clients live in SugarLand or Fort Bend County. My current location saves me ten minutes per trip vs my previous locations in Magnolia Grove and Rice Military. Half a block, or a block and a U turn, and I’m on the freeway. No driving for ten minutes thru the hood before I even get to the freeway. And the majority of the time, the SW Frwy is NOT congested, so my trips to IAH don’t take any longer than those from my previous locations. And on those occasions when the SW Frwy is congested, there are shortcuts around the congestion. These shortcuts add maybe ten minutes to a non congested trip. I reenter the frwy at McGowen, and the frwy almost always opens up by GRB. Plus, since 59 North is fairly congestion free, even during rush hour, I save $$$ by not using the Hardy Toll Road, which I used when I lived in my previous locations. Overall, my location is a win in this regard.
You know what HCAD does NOT show? The INSIDE of my condo. It is by FAR the nicest of those I looked at. ONly two others were even close. One was in Afton Oaks (Talk about a traffic nightmare), and one in Montrose, which had a maintenance fee over $200 more than I paid at my current place in 03. You wouldn’t believe some of the dumps I looked at that were similary priced. My unit has crown molding, recessed lighting, pocket doors, new carpet, nice tile in the entryway and kitchen, all new appliances, and a stained galss window in the wall between the kitchen and the foyer. Too bad the mods won’t allow me to post links to my Facebook page. If they did, you could look at pix of the inside of my condo. Given that my interior is far nicer than almost all of my neighbors, I’d say the price was more than right.
About the age of the building. Its structurally sound, what can I say? Put it this way. If I could post pix, I would show you a shirtless selfie I took earlier this year of my 53 year old self. I work out between ten to twelve hours per week. Got 1 1/2 hours of cardio yesterday. 5’11”, between 175 lbs and 180 lbs. You could see for yourself that I’m in much better shape than most men younger than me. Nuf said.
More about the price. HCAD info does not reflect this, but my neighbor in unit three recently recently sold his unit for well over what I paid for mine in 03. Well into six figuires. And while it was rehabbed before the sale, it still is not as nice as mine. And btw, apparently I’m inside the Upper Kirby TIRZ, and as such, my appraisal hasn’t risen in quite some time, and won’t go up in the forseable future.
One last thing. I didn’t do due diligence concerning my neighbors. My little 54 unit complex contains a young lady who posed for a famous men’s magazine five times in the 00s, her younger sister who was sized 34 DD by the time she was 16, despite being a size ZERO !!!, and a 21 year old young lady who is a model (her mom LOVES to post her daughters pix on Facebook, including bikini pix taken by professional photographers) who hosts a show on Mundo Fox (Comcast 307). And don’t forget the young lady who used to live here who was also DD as a teen. Last I heard, she was dancing at the Penthouse Club.
And with that, I wish you a nice weekend !!!
No way this XCellKen person is real. It has to be a regular just trolling for fun.
@Cody, if he’s trolling, then he’s pranking the real Ken, whose actually owns a condo in that complex and whose Facebook page he linked to.
Cody, the real Ken and the troll Ken are one and the same. Maybe you should stop by and chat sometime? I live between units 14 and 16
That’s not how TIRZs work, Ken. Individual property owners do not see any impact from a TIRZ going toward their appraised values or their tax rates.
The Niche. Then it must be a strange coincidence that my appraised value hasn’t risen even one cent in quite a few years.
HCAD has probably already fully depreciated your condo because it’s so old and held your land values constant. And the data that they have on construction costs for new condos similar to yours is probably very sparse or non-existent, so they have probably haven’t updated the replacement cost anytime recently. That would pretty much do it. Either that, or you’ve got a particular sort of property that gets “reconciled” to a prior-year value because they were unable to come up with any evidence for a value increase.
None of this has anything to do with a TIRZ.
A TIRZ foesn’t keep values constant, in fact the goal is quite the opposite, since the TIRZ gets the taxes related to the increase in property values since the TIRZ started. If a property stays at a value, there’s no real benefit to the TIRZ.
Glad to see this gone. It was only a matter of time before we lost some cops and/or firefighters at this place.