University Apartments and Century Square

Trendy mixed-use right in the heart of the city! (Picture by author, 2/20)

This post was originally written as "University Apartments", which focused on the group of university-owned apartments that were largely torn down around 2014 for what we now know as Century Square. Initially, I had no interest in covering Century Square as I had updated the post to my standards at the time to wrap up the site (it's why there's an eight month gap between the last 2014 post and the first 2015 post). As a result, this covers the predecessor of Century Square, the University Apartments, first, and we'll progress to the present day and the current occupier of the site.

During my time at A&M, I was thankful that I had enough sense to photograph many buildings on their way out in terms of demolition or extensive renovation. I didn't get enough pictures of the old Scoates Hall, and no inside shots of Dulie Bell, but did get pictures of The Commons, Zachry Engineering Center, Read Building, G. Rollie White, and of course, these.

When making this post originally (or at least doing a significant update), I had done research at Cushing Memorial Library, which refers to Battalion articles that aren't available to be linked. Some of the links that were available, dating from the mid-2000s have been removed from the Battalion's webpage (with no Archive.org to rescue them, I didn't have enough sense back then to archive my links).

Originally rows and rows of two-level Army-style barracks filling up the diagonal-row roads in the early 1950s, with two complexes, College View and Southside, a federal grant in 1957 (to the tune of 2.5 million dollars, which would be about 20 million today) allowed more to be built.

From what I could tell, the original College View Apartments were Army-style barracks filling up the diagonal-row roads east of Northgate built in the early 1950s (at the same time Southside was built, which appeared to have been at the northeast corner of Wellborn and modern-day George Bush Drive, more on that another day).

In 1960, the Hensel Apartments (later Hensel Terrace Apartments) were built, and originally not air-conditioned (until likely the 1970s). The new College View Apartments, built in 1969, were built facing FM 60 and according to The Battalion were "cool, comfortable, and complete", being climate controlled at 70 degrees.

Interestingly, despite the new College View apartments replacing the old College View buildings on a 1:1 basis, only about 7 buildings were built. Nearly 30 others were torn down (a few lasting into the early 1980s, a footnote at a document called "Brazos Valley Chronology" at Project HOLD, mentions the last of these were removed in 1982) without replacement, and until the Century Square development, those spaces remained vacant, possibly due to lack of funding. The back 13 were redeveloped into Avenue A Apartments on a 1:1 replacement, but it was still a lot of vacant space. The 1970s also saw the construction of College Avenue Apartments, which were directly across College Avenue from University Square Shopping Center.

As time went on, the Married Student Housing became known as the "University Apartments", as it started to become known for international students as well. The maintenance of the apartments declined and the roads started to deteriorate, but there wasn't any major trouble. Piecemeal improvements were made to the complex, including the addition of the Becky Gates Children's Center, a 1997 addition on Hensel that would have childcare for students married with children. Later on a community center and playground were built as well. However, it was an incident in 2004 that did change the University Apartments forever.

One day in July 2004, residents complained about a smell of natural gas in the Hensel Terrace Apartments. The maintenance worker responded but decided to not repair the leak until the next week (in fact, they told residents to close their windows, thus making the smell inside worse). Saquib Ejaz, a resident of those apartments, lived with his wife and daughter at Hensel Apartments. His parents were visiting from Bangladesh. While his parents, wife (who was pregnant with another child), and daughter were home, the gas somehow ignited and fire consumed the apartment's interior, severely burning all four. His wife and father survived, but his daughter and mother did not. Other apartments were damaged, as well, however; the structure itself survived.

Lawsuits were filed, and by 2005, a number of new improvements were announced, including new stoves, new detectors, and much better maintenance. This still wasn't "enough" maintenance, as the apartment complex was still falling apart, with the College Avenue Apartments on Ball Street having unleveled floors.

However, by fall 2006, a plan was approved to add the Gardens at University, which, instead of building it on vacant land, would replace the existing apartments. When I first wrote this article in 2012, the College Avenue Apartments had been demolished in 2011 (without replacement), and two-thirds of the Hensel Terrace Apartments (including the rebuilt apartments where Ejaz's apartment was) had been torn down for the Gardens. Nothing else had been altered since then.

In early 2013 "Campus Pointe", a long-planned redevelopment of the area, was trotted out again and approved. This would essentially lease the university's land to a private developer, becoming one of the few shopping malls built on property leased from a university (Stanford Shopping Center is another example).

College View Apartments, Hensel Terrace Apartments, and Avenue A Apartments were marked for destruction--all residents had to move out. There were even stories of the mattresses being moved out first, so many had to make do with sleeping on the floor, and a new field designated for playing cricket (popular as most of the residents came from overseas) had to be closed. Despite (presumably) assistance, the apartments all near campus had much higher rent, and both Northgate and Southgate had undergone some degree of gentrification.

While The Gardens, the daycare, and the maintenance building were not affected and still stand, the demolition for redevelopment seemed to take a long time, for months, the abandoned apartments (speckled with graffiti) stood, then for many more months with just vacant land. Sometime during all of this, Campus Pointe was renamed to Century Square.

A friend and I took these in May 2013, soon before eviction in summer 2013 (the picture at the title is also from that):

Nobody's home.

Avenue A Apartments, which has eight units per building, four of which are seen here.

There is so much open space here, great for large group games or tossing a Frisbee around. Too bad this will go away...

College View Apartments. These face University Drive.

Hensel Terrace Apartments. Most of these are already gone, including the unit that exploded in 2004. It's worth noting that the building wasn't actually destroyed. The apartments have concrete foundations and despite being old and run-down, are better built then similar apartment complexes of the same era.

The Gardens at University Apartments. These will stick around.

Interesting vents on the University Apartments Maintenance Building.
For the next few years, the entire area was gated off as new construction began to take over, opening as Century Square.

The center would open in phases, with many of the restaurants coming in-line by fall 2017 (the hotels opened sooner). I haven't actually been to most of what Century Square has to offer...the parking is a major issue, in an effort to be more like Houston high-end development, the developers instituted paid parking everywhere except the garage (which also once had a strict time limit for staying).

The "mall space" is composed of a bunch of buildings floating in parking lots. As the way I'm going to explain it is going to be confusing, I recommend you look at the PDF directory to understand the layout. It's an archived version, and will go increasingly out of date as time goes on, but the link should stay up.

1025 University Drive - Located at the corner of the development, closest to the College Drive/University intersection, this building has, from left to right, Mo's Irish Pub, Orangetheory Fitness, Sharetea, Merge Boutique, Clean Juice, and Piada Street Food. I ate at Mo's Irish Pub once—airy, modern space, cute waitresses, but average food with only a few token "Irish" dishes. Clean Juice doesn't seem to show up in the directory anymore as of this writing, though, so it might be closed.

1099 University Drive - This is almost the same building as 1025 University Drive except there's a covered open-air walkway between them. This building has three tenants, Velvet Taco (opened September 2021 and the former home to Runway Seven, a women's clothing store, which closed sometime in 2019 after about two years), Tiff's Treats, and Zoë's Kitchen.

1027 University Drive - Directly behind the 1025/1099 building is 1027, a two-story building that wraps around the parking garage. This is where Star Cinema Grill is, located on the upper level (I have yet to visit it). The lower level is mostly vacant, with only Harvest Coffee and a second local location of I Heart Mac and Cheese (opened September 2020). The largest store in the block is College Station's own lululemon athletica store, with its pricey, brand-name yoga pants. Next to that is Grass Stains, a specialty boutique with its only location here (the original location in Graham, Texas has since closed).

166 Century Court - Directly east of the preceding building, 166 Century Court is a multi-story office building ("Century Square Two") with three retail tenants currently on the ground floor--Onward Reserve (opened November 2019), King Ranch Saddle Shop and Hemline, a women's clothing boutique out of New Orleans. In December 2020, a "selfie museum", Instaland BCS, opened next to Onward Reserve, with Luchesse Bootmaker opening north of it soon after.

144 Century Court - To the east of the preceding building. Hopdoddy Burger Bar, Hey Sugar, and Sabi Boutique, are all located here. Sabi Boutique opened in April 2019 as their second location. The boutique had maintained a storefront at The Lofts at Wolf Pen Creek for years, but they moved that location to University Drive East within a few months , meaning that they had two locations on the same road less than a mile away from each other. It is not listed on Century Square's website anymore. Yelp says the location is closed, while Sabi Boutique's Facebook page just reports that on May 2020, the Century Square store would remain "temporarily" closed. The other two places, Hopdoddy and Hey Sugar I've never bought anything from, and I have some less-than-flattering impressions that I could tell you about, but it would be bad form to disparage open businesses.

143 Century Court - The "mirror" of the preceding building to the east, on the other side of The Green (an open space for outdoor events and al fresco dining) has three more tenant spaces: Blaze Pizza, Sub Zero Nitrogen Ice Cream (closed as of February 2020, and has yet to be retenanted), and Sweet Paris Crêperie & Café. I've never been to Sweet Paris but I do know of it since it had replaced the Rice Village location of Texadelphia (a fact mentioned in our Texadelphia post).

175 Century Square Drive - The only retail tenant below the Century Square One office building is Galleria Spa Salon, formerly Galleria Day Spa (for years it used to be at the corner of Cavitt Drive and Villa Maria Drive, until it moved to Rock Prairie, which is still there). The office tenants include Breakaway Ministries, UBS Financial Services, and BRW Architects.

Going counterclockwise around toward the back are two boutique hotels, "The George" (with "1791 Whiskey Bar" inside), which opened August 2017, and Cavalry Court, which opened November 2016 (one of the first tenants) with its "The Canteen" restaurant. Despite being a four-star hotel with off-season prices being around $120 a night, all the rooms open to the outside.

Directly behind The Green was Poppy (named after the late Bush 41's nickname). Sometime right around very early 2020 before you-know-what happened, Poppy closed for an upscale Mexican concept (to be named Juanitas), but seeing as 2020 has been atrocious to restaurants, it remains empty (though is still planned). West of the former Poppy is Porters Dining + Butcher, a high-end (well, at least for College Station) steakhouse.

170 Century Square Drive - Finally, to the east of the complex is 100 Park, an apartment building that fits into the whole modern "mixed-use" concept, though not oriented toward students. At the bottom of this apartments include Pokéworks (opened January 2020) and MESS Waffles, which opened October 2018. This used to be known as Wafology, which was mentioned at the 711 University Drive article.

1289 University Drive - The first tenant to come...and go...Neighbors Emergency Center opened in October 2016 but closed around August 2016. This opened in October 2016 as Neighbors Emergency Center, a private 24-hour care emergency clinic that was the first open tenant in the Century Square development. However, it closed within about 10 months. In November 2018, CapRock Urgent Care opened in its place, and in spring 2021, became Integrity Urgent Care as CapRock sold off most of its facilities.

UPDATE 01-04-2021: After adding Century Square in the fourth edit version to this page in February 2020, the fifth edit to this page includes some tenant changes and other minor fixes.
UPDATE 07-10-2021: Minor updates, but the only thing of note was Integrity Urgent Care (CapRock sold).
UPDATE 12-13-2021: Added Velvet Taco and minor update regarding Poppy, as well as UBS.

Campus Theater

A much, much, better version of this 1989 shot is found here. This version is from TexasEscapes.


The Campus Theater opened in Northgate in 1940, on the corner of Boyett and University at what is currently 217 University Drive. It was the first theater in College Station, and ended up lasting a very long time. Done in an art deco style and with a single screen (it had a balcony and cry room, too!), it survived sometime into the mid to late 1980s as competition forced it out of business (or maybe the Schulmans, which owned and built it, closed it in '85, along with their theaters in downtown Bryan. Makes sense in the timeline).

After the theater began to deteriorate, around 1995 it finally reopened as Shadow Canyon, which soon after gave it a dreadful makeover by covering over much of the building in wood to give it a country-western theme, and that's been the type of tenant of it's been ever since. Shadow Canyon did well initially, but it faltered (according to a now-dead Battalion link, they had started charging a cover and used gimmicks like wet t-shirt contests to gain attendance).
From this article, it officially closed in December 2004 though it played host to the Northgate Music Festival in early 2005.


Next up was Midnight Rodeo, which still has locations in San Antonio and Amarillo (an Austin location has closed since 2013). But the College Station location did not last nearly as long as Shadow Canyon, as it opened in early 2006 and closed by summer 2007 (it was supposed to be a five year lease, and a number of other dance halls owned by the same company closed around the time, such as one at the Katy Mills mall in the Houston area).

Daisy Duke's (country western) opened in early 2009 which was a country-western dance hall. As you can see from a Panaramio picture below, it's obviously the same building from above, but horrible things have been done to it (sorry I lack a better picture).


From Panoramio user "rahulatiitd". Note the "YON" barely visible from Shadow Canyon's old signage.

So the building was clearly mauled, but it got worse. In spring 2013, Daisy Dukes took advantage of the upper level the original building had and opened rooftop seating right above the marquee, with seating and televisions. This was not only ugly but also raised the question if the circa 1940 roof clearly not designed to support tons of people would collapse one day (then again, these sorts of things were done with all sorts of redundancies). By November, it was renamed to Duke's, and by summer 2014 changed hands to The Tap's owners. Prior to this time, there was a lot of drama with the Dallis family including squatting in the Café Eccell building, DUI arrests, and the fact that a former manager of DD's (and an estranged brother, at least publicly) was arrested for something more major, and while initially The Tap talked about the space becoming "No Name Saloon" (which was just a temporary name and never actually on the marquee, the closest to that being when they were changing signs). In the end it just remained a dance hall with a trashy reputation (and by fall 2014 it had officially become Boulevard 217).

Boulevard 217 closed after fall of 2015 and another dance hall, Shiner Park, opened for fall 2016. With the exceptions of the upper level area created in 2013, all of the incarnations have barely changed anything exterior-wise, and the longest lived bar here post-theater was Shadow Canyon, which also was the only one who put real work into the building.

Perhaps after Shiner Park bites it, there could be something else that restores the facade of the Campus Theater's facade, and even if it still remains a nightclub, could be something that the Northgate area could look forward to.

Rewritten June 2020 to account for new bar, weeding out old links.

University Square Shopping Center / Legacy Point

A still-standing reminder of what the center was. All but one was gone as of this when this photo was taken in 2012 with my old cell phone camera. The Junction pulled out in summer of 2012 and was replaced by "Piranha Fitness Studio". There's a smaller sign signed as Legacy Point closer to IHOP.

This used to be one of the more popular posts on this blog and to this day, the picture of the closed Albertsons (since demolished) is used as the Facebook header. The old Albertsons (or Skaggs Alpha Beta, or however it is remembered) is a topic in itself, which is covered at this page now.

Most of this shopping center is actually gone now, including the former Albertsons, but was composed of several buildings, which I'll try to describe going counter clockwise around the center from University to College Avenue.

Almost directly behind the Taco Bell on University was two food shacks.

For years (since approximately 1991, if I recall correctly), there was a little Cajun food place called Hebert's Cajun Food. It wasn't that cheap, but it was fast, delicious, and worth it: much like a food truck. It closed on June 15th, 2012 with more pictures (not mine) here, and later moved to a variety of locations, including Village Foods for about a year. They later built a short-lived physical location in downtown Caldwell, and the latest location is operating of the Buc-ee's in Brazoria.

There was also a coffee shop, "Java Jitters" just directly across it, which was a small shack operated by the same owners of Hebert's (the same guy ran both shacks, but obviously never simultaneously). Never went to it, it was only open in the mornings. The addresses of Hebert's and Java Jitters were 727 University Drive and 729 University Drive, respectively. You can see my pictures below.


Java Jitters, gutted.

My old compiled University Drive directory, 729 University was "Film & Photos No. 2248" in 1980 and Nachos to Go in 1993. "The wooden shack of Java Jitters was almost certainly not the photo booth. However, Java Jitters and Nachos to Go were likely the same building."

Behind these food shacks was another building, was 725 University Drive. Like the two food shacks, it is also gone. It was located approximately where the intersection of the two halves of Church Avenue meet the main driveway that dead-ends at the Stack location and faced south (behind the Taco Bell). It was torn down in July 2012.

I also took the picture (a few, actually!) of the A+ Tutoring/Fat Burger building, which had both closed after the spring 2012 semester (but before the demolition). It wasn't an unfamiliar location that semester, either, I had gone to both buildings in the semester prior: trying to pass Organic Chemistry through A+ (if you are a student or considering to be one, please do not do this, just study and know the material), or hanging out in Fat Burger (not related to a chain called Fatburger, that's different--seems it's confused Yelpers), which had a fixings bar (which is, of course, best at the beginning of the day). It lived up to its name--offering the 1/3 pound "Fat Burger" and the full-pound Bevo Burger. The fixings bar I don't have a picture of, only the gutted remains of it after the store closed. Seems like they also may have had a different logo at one time.

Neither tenant was original, Fat Burger's "goodbye" sign implies it was there since 1984, and from my notes, "Mo-Peds to Go", then "Tommy's" was at Fat Burger's site (suite A) and for suite B (A+), there was Budget Tapes & Records, which was a popular music chain at the time, then Music Express until around the mid-1980s.

I didn't take the front of A+, nor Fat Burger at night, unfortunately (Fat Burger kind of had this half-burned out light, and A+ didn't light up at all). There was a picnic bench in front of both buildings. I know I remember (maybe circa 2003) that A+ actually had the "AT+" logo on the front, but it still must have ran afoul of TAMU logo usage. A 1995 directory refers to the spot as "A&M Tutoring" (the university cracked down on unlicensed use of "A&M" or "Aggie" in business names, but it's not clear if they had already changed their sign by that time).


On the side of the building, the original logo could still be seen. They offered CHEM 227 and CHEM 228, just not at the time they painted this.


Never thought to get Fat Burger delivered.



The front of the building, taken in daytime by a cell phone camera.

This location is gone, too, with both locations consolidating near the old Albertsons/Randalls.

Right to the east of that was the main shopping center, which is now "The Stack Field" (just open space). The Albertsons was the largest tenant at the center, closed at the end of 1997, following the purchase of the Randalls store on University Drive East. While Albertsons drew up plans to reopen the store (again, covered on the post dedicated to the store itself), it fell apart a few years later when Albertsons closed down the Houston division of the company (the local stores were moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth division) and scrapped much of its expansion plans.

As early as 2003 (presumably when the Albertsons deal was completely dead), the city was looking to improve on the center (which had lost Albertsons by that point) as part of a largely far-fetched Northgate redevelopment that would see University Square (eventually) get developed into something else: a "Cultural/Science Center" anchor, citing the Exploratorium as a model (and THIS I did hear about back in '03), a think tank/business incubator, or a mixed-use project that would incorporate a variety of restaurants and a modern movie theater. This all would all change, of course, when it was revealed that the center would be dramatically altered for a new mixed-use development, but ultimately all that resulted was a new development behind it, and some demolished buildings, most of which haven't been replaced since they were torn down. Even now, only a sad-looking "Legacy Point" sign stands near the IHOP that used to be the sign of Albertsons long ago. Some "legacy". The current plan as of 2019 is supposed to replace the remainder of the shopping center with a Century Square-like development. We'll see.

It should be noted that University Square was always the name of the shopping center, not Skaggs Shopping Center as some publications have suggested.

With 301 College already covered, going down the center has these tenants.

303 College Avenue

Photo from an old yearbook.
Mitchells "department store" was a clothing store previously owned by (at least a majority of) Leonard Brothers of Fort Worth, which had been acquired in 1967 by Tandy Corporation, with a location at University Square in the early 1970s. By 1974, Tandy had disposed of the chain along with Leonard's (which was sold to Dillard's), but Mitchells continued to operate at University Square until around 1976. In 1977, Webster's Catalog Showroom opened in the spot. While this ad lists it as 306 College (for some reason), both Mitchells (per ads) and Webster's (per a 1980 phone book) had it as 303 College Avenue.


Mitchells "department store" was a clothing store previously owned by (at least a majority of) Leonard Brothers of Fort Worth, which had been acquired in 1967 by Tandy Corporation, with a location at University Square in the early 1970s. By 1974, Tandy had disposed of the chain along with Leonard's (which was sold to Dillard's), but Mitchells continued to operate at University Square until around 1976. In 1977, Webster's Catalog Showroom opened in the spot. While this ad lists it as 306 College, both Mitchells (per ads) and Webster's (per a 1980 phone book) had it as 303 College Avenue.

Notice the Tandy Corporation logo--that was RadioShack's parent company (which later adopted the name of RadioShack). They had a much greater range in those days, and ran full companies. By 1992, the store became a McDuff Superstore (according to a 1992 ad that I have), also at the address and owned by Tandy. Someone mentioned that there was a RadioShack here at one time, which may have been when Tandy ended the brand name, but I don't have confirmation of RadioShack's presence at University Square. Somewhere in the late 1990s or early 2000s, it became Rother's, which would remain (save for a rename to Traditions) until its demise.

Next to it was BCS Bicycles (at 309 University), which moved to 317 University. Even by 1980, it was Hancock Fabrics until sometime in the late 2000s or the early 2010s, then BCS Bicycles. Probably due to the fact that both the size of the Mitchells/Webster's/Rother's/Traditions and Hancock Fabrics/BCS Bicycles, there wasn't a 305 or 307 University, even looking through archives.

The last stores on the block are a little harder to track because of various expansions of Hurricane Harry's (313 College), which dates back to at least 1992. The other side of the shopping center has a slightly taller roof. This used to be the Cineplex (later Plitt) III, a three-screen movie theater. It lasted through the various names of the supermarket, but closed around 1996 and was divided between an expansion of Hurricane Harry's, and well before the theater closed, it also shared the address with what was once simply "The Jewelry & Coin Exchange" (now "David's Jewelry & Coin Exchange" since late 2013). The last tenant on the end (315 College, taking half of the theater) was TJ's Laser Tag, which was around from maybe 1996 to 1999. I remember my brother had gone there a few times for his birthday, but I was still in elementary school when it closed.

That spot later became The Junction (a pool hall that didn't serve alcohol). The Junction eventually closed around 2012 and became Piranha Fitness Studio. There was also additional A+ classrooms at 311A College Avenue, but they're gone (now offices for Eccell Group). At one time, 313C (unknown what's there now, but the building is still there) was a restaurant called "Fred's For Lunch" which sold submarine sandwiches and Blue Bell ice cream.

Speaking of hurricanes, the restaurant in the east side of the parking lot was Crazy Cajuns', created by Hurricane Rita evacuees (Lake Charles, Louisiana) and was on its second location, moving from 14841 FM 2154 (indeed, the sign on the building side still read "Wellborn, Texas" up until its closure). While I first went to the location in Wellborn (I don't know what's there now), which included only a large covered area with picnic tables (December 2006 is when I went), this eventually did end up being a favorite of mine, as I went in March 2011 to this location and had a blast. Lots of food for a good price. It was still spicy, and had been in this place since somewhere about 2008-2009. It went through a few changes in ownership, and steadily declined, notably in service first, then food, and health ratings, before finally closing for good in summer 2012. It shut down the same week as Hebert's did (sad time for Cajun food lovers). I expressed some hope that Hebert's would be able to move into the restaurant, and go from essentially a snack bar to a full restaurant where you could take your family, but that wasn't going to work.

There used to be a Thai place before it (the second incarnation of Thai Taste, and not a particularly great one), and before that a combo Mexican/Cajun place called Alicia's (thanks to HAIF user "keyser" for the restaurant history). The comments tell a bit more of the story. In fact, while wandering around around the 2012-2013 holidays, I found the canopy had some older names exposed...


Alicia's AND Thai Taste!
It started out as a Bonanza Steakhouse in 1973 (or 1972), which was more a cafeteria/buffet affair (rather than a traditional "steakhouse") and later served briefly as Cow Hop (before it moved back to the main strip on Northgate). But in 2013, nearly 40 years after its construction, it now serves as BCS Bicycles & Repair, which moved from their location in the strip.

Other shots, taken January 2011 & surrounding buildings...





Regrettably, I was never able to get a picture of the interior of the Albertsons, or any other time: the windows were painted over, and my one shot of the interiors was kind of messed up by the flash, and while it did capture some of the interior in a blurry configuration that revealed rows of fluorescents and columns, it mostly created a reflection of me, which I didn't like.


The next shot is one that's not mine, but it's a great shot, with the old Hancock Fabrics sign visible. The second and third show older tenants, like Rother's and Hancock Fabrics. These were taken in May 2012 by me. I guess the businesses didn't bother changing the signs in the rear...





You'll notice that I forgot to mention the IHOP, which is part of the center. I don't have pictures of it, nor have been inside for over two decades.

Most recently updated in February 2020.