The Scene by Minute Maid Park, Where the Gold and Musicians Buildings Are Leaving for Nau

Future Site of Nau Center for Texas Cultural Heritage, 607 Chenevert St., Downtown Houston

Chiming in with this morning’s Demo Report, which more formally announces the departure of a couple of old single-story buildings at 607 and 609 Chenevert St., reader Jack Miller sends in this photo of the scene yesterday a couple blocks north of the George R. Brown Convention Center and immediately south of Minute Maid Park. At the far left, an excavator is seen assuring that the former Houston Professional Musicians’ Association and Houston Precious Metals buildings from 1949 will indeed get out of the way in time for the Nau Center for Texas Cultural Heritage to be built on the site.

Is this yet another story of older Houston buildings making way for the new? Maybe, but at a larger scale, it’s partly the reverse: Two houses from 1904 and 1905 were moved onto a portion of Avenida de Las Americas glommed onto the site 3 years ago, on a spot across Texas Ave. from the ball park (behind and to the left of the camera). And the photo below includes a glimpse (on the far right) of the 1919 Southern Pacific 982 steam engine scooted out of the houses’ way and settled in along the light-rail line on Capitol St.:

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Future Site of Nau Center for Texas Cultural Heritage, 607 Chenevert St., Downtown Houston

The houses and the engine will become a part of the Nau Center complex, which it appears will swallow this block of Chenevert. (The engine will be moved indoors.)

Future Site of Nau Center for Texas Cultural Heritage, 607 Chenevert St., Downtown Houston

Photos: Jack Miller. Rendering: Bailey Architects

Centering Our Cultural Heritage

5 Comment

  • I can’t wait to see what Houston looks like when they are finished building it.

  • Does this include the building with Home Plate Bar, or is that a different building that will share the block with the Nau Center?

  • From the sketch, it looks like the building with the Home Plate Bar is shown attached to the back of the Nau Center building.

  • This will be nice addition to this block and beneficial to the Home Plate Grill, however, my only question is the parking? Hopefully, the architects/developers have taken this into consideration and one of those buildings in this rendering is a parking garage.

  • There’s a 1,900 parking garage going up on the block immediately south of the complex attached to GRB.