The Westinghouse Building

The plant in its idle days (2010). It used more land than it sat on. Maybe they had plans for further expansion once.
Long before even the Southwest Parkway overpass was built, around 1980, Westinghouse Electric Corporation purchased a large 50-acre site off of the "East Bypass" and on it, opened a plant for their Westinghouse Electronic Systems division, employing just under 500 people, and featuring amenities such as a cafeteria, an infirmary, and even a racquetball court. This plant opened around 1983-1984.

Westinghouse began to scale down the plant's employee count in the early 1990s, starting a wave of layoffs that would ultimately gut the facility. In 1995, corporate at Westinghouse made a major purchase that would change the company—CBS Incorporated, which would become the main focus of the company. It would rename to CBS Corporation in 1997 and divest most of its remaining assets until it merged with CBS's former spin-off Viacom in 2000.¹

In 1996, Westinghouse Electronic Systems (as a division) was sold to Northrop Grumman, and the College Station plant went with it, but its best years were behind it. When Northrup Grumman shut down the plant in 1999 (just three years after buying Westinghouse Electronic Systems), it had only 100 employees down from a peak of 470 when Westinghouse was running it in the 1980s and early 1990s before the layoffs. For a period of about 10 years, the facility sat vacant. In 2005, I remember hearing the news about some vandalism of the facility, but I can't find an article for it.

In early 2009, Lynntech Inc., a local firm, purchased the site for their consolidated headquarters. Lynntech's idea was that they would use some of the space, and develop the rest of the space, including the area behind and around the facility. One of maps from the defunct AbouTown Press had a map of what the whole thing would look like when filled out (it would've had more buildings and facilities, though it did not have an extension of Appomattox, at least from what I remember), though I no longer have it.

From the start, it did not go well. The purchase was finalized in March 2009 but they could not move into the building until early 2010 (don't ask me why it has the year 2012 on the article). A biofuel company was scheduled to move in² but I can't find proof of that ever went through.

By 2014, The Science Park hadn't even filled the original building, much less build out anything on the massive 53-acre campus it sat in. However, a new proposal would completely fill the facility when Blinn announced they were considering the building for a campus expansion. The idea faced heavy resistance from the nearby Raintree subdivision residents on traffic noise³; the highway was essentially one-way in, one-way out, and didn't nearly have the outflow capabilities of the Villa Maria Blinn campus. Within a few months, Blinn dropped their plans and would continue to focus in Bryan.⁴

The next stage in the life of the campus would come in 2016 when Oldham Goodwin acquired the campus and renamed it to Providence Park. The big difference here was that the acreage was hybridized for commercial opportunities, and soon after, a good part of the parking lot of the facility was removed for the construction of a new Academy Sports + Outdoors store, moving from their old store at Horse Haven Lane. Additionally, one part of the building was removed near the front (probably the old cafeteria) and Northrup-Grumman Road, a small access road off of the highway that provided access to the back of the facility (and another access to the parking lot of St. Thomas next door), was largely rebuilt and renamed as Providence Road (though St. Thomas put up a gate that possibly opens on Sundays but it's closed most of the time).

The Westinghouse building has a common corridor to access the office tenants inside. (Photo by author, 1/2020).
New parking was built directly in front of the what is now known as "The Westinghouse Building" at 2501 Earl Rudder Freeway to replace the parking lost to Academy. Lynntech and a few other tenants still occupy the site. I haven't made anything about the current Academy—probably not since it's very much still there (what am I supposed to say about it?) nor the La-Z-Boy store that opened earlier this year...or VeraBank...but I do have something on the short-lived Varsity Grillhouse which you can read about here.

1. The drama between CBS, Viacom, and their on-and-off relationship is mildly interesting, but you can read about it elsewhere. Up until 2021 when the newly re-merged ViacomCBS (since renamed Paramount Global) sold the trademark back to former Westinghouse division Westinghouse Electric Company, they still owned the trademark through a licensing subsidiary.
2. If that link is slow, also check this one.
3. Raintree residents never did like the Westinghouse idea from day one. I'm not sure what the compromise was, or if the questions they had were just not applicable to what Westinghouse was doing.
4. After the Westinghouse plan was abandoned, Blinn settled on the northwest corner of Leonard Road and North Harvey Mitchell Parkway. This was ultimately abandoned when Texas A&M announced the "RELLIS" campus and ultimately the second Blinn campus was moved there.
5. Before around 2000, the address was 7807 East Bypass.

Wendy's "Tiger Town"

The Wendy's/Exxon signs are original, but are unfortunately getting faded. (Photo by author, 5/25)
With this post we'll cover all of the local Wendy's restaurants, the first one in Bryan (since closed), the College Station location (still open), the Holleman/Harvey Mitchell Pkwy. location (now closed), and finally the combo gas station one.

In 1998, a combination Exxon/Wendy's opened at the corner of Highway 6 and William Joel Bryan Parkway (initially as "2000 South Highway 6" but 891 North Earl Rudder Freeway within a year). This was the very first combination true gas station/fast food restaurant in the Bryan-College Station area (if you don't count stuff like that Subway inside the Texaco in south College Station, among other oddities).

Wendy's served nachos?! I guess they still had access to Superbar-type ingredients...but pitas too! (source)
It was always an Exxon, and initially the convenience store was "Tiger Town" but in 1999 was bought by Kolkhorst and ended up being Rattlers' Country Store #3 when the chain was rebranded as such around 2003. Basically it was the twin of the Holleman/Harvey Mitchell store (except with an Exxon). While the Wendy's roadside signage has yet to receive the 2013 logo (phew!) the convenience store hasn't been as lucky. It became Stripes in 2015 (officially) which got bought by 7-Eleven a few years later, but rather than convert the stores (it never even got Stripes' version of the ICEE) it ended up becoming a "zombie" Rattlers with no 7-Eleven association.

Abandoned Baskin-Robbins Factory

I don't have a good picture for this other than this imprisoned VW Rabbit that was here for several years. (Picture by me, 12/2015)
This is another Texas Avenue entry that doesn't have a Carbon-izer.com equivalent but something I wanted to talk about for several years at this point. 1918 S. Texas Avenue started out as an ice cream plant built in 1955 per Brazos CAD and expanded in 1956 under Sanitary Dairies out of Houston. The plant made ice cream for retail sale (the "Quality Chekd" brand), but also manufactured Baskin-Robbins ice cream under license (Sanitary Dairies was the franchisee for the Texas area). In 1969, Sanitary Dairies was purchased by National Convenience Stores Inc., which would be better known for its Stop N Go chain of convenience stores. They would buy 7-Eleven out of Houston in the late 1980s, get bought by Diamond Shamrock in the 1990s, and eventually disappear in favor of Corner Store and eventually Circle K...but that all came later.

Anyway, a few years later, NCS sold their Baskin-Robbins franchise directly back to the parent company, which at the time was banana giant United Brands (which owned A&W as well at the time) and with this, became a full Baskin-Robbins facility connected to the company. (A Baskin-Robbins ice cream shop was just right down the street). Baskin-Robbins was later sold to British company J. Lyons and Company and after a few mergers was owned by Allied Domecq. Despite serving much of the entire West Coast area and being one of only two plants Baskin-Robbins actually owned, in July 2000, Baskin-Robbins announced it was closing the plant and moving production to Alta Dena Certified Dairy in California, which manufactured frozen yogurt for West Coast stores. A plant in Owensboro, Kentucky continued to operate until it was finally sold in the early 2020s.

I had been a fan of Baskin-Robbins there at Southwest Parkway and Texas, and while Blue Bell made a lot of noise about being a "local" creamery, all this time the ice cream from Baskin-Robbins was made closer to home. (I don't think Baskin-Robbins did tours, though). Anyway, the plant auctioned off its equipment in spring 2001, The plant is currently owned by "TURK-AM PHOENIX PROPERTIES INC", which just appears to be a shell company based out of a private owner out of Spring.

Checkers, Revisited

It's not the greatest photo out there, but I tried. (Photo by author, 4/2025)
Happy Easter, or rather 4/20, depending on how you want to see it. We're taking a brief break from our Texas Avenue-themed locations for a bit (maybe, perhaps, longer). Much like how the recent Finfeather 7-Eleven post was a revised version of an old, removed post, you may remember me covering this (it wasn't your imagination, it was published in early 2013 per records but removed around 2019 because I wasn't happy with it).

Now sporting the address of 1103 Welsh Avenue, the "new" Checkers (opened April 2025 after being under construction for at least a year, the licensed "Big Madre" taco concept opening May) but I remember when the old Checkers, 604 Holleman, opened. Vaguely.

604 Holleman was first developed as commercial property in 1971 as a UtoteM, converted to Circle K in 1984, and closed in 1987¹. Additionally, next to the station (same building) at 606 Holleman², was Holik's Package Store and later Al's Washateria. From what I've been told and can piece together this was completely abandoned during the 1990s.

In 1997, the building was torn down for a new gas station and convenience store called Checkers. You can see what Checkers looked like on older Google Maps Street View images, though as a kid its unusual appearance for a gas station was puzzling, with an unused upper level. (I'm guessing it might've been intended to be leased as office space but never came to pass). Eventually, a stop sign was added at Welsh and Holleman by the early 2000s and ultimately (I want to say 2009) a full stoplight was added.

While there were few updates to the gas station over the years (the only thing notable was repainting the canopy from green to white, around 2011, then ultimately yellow), the gas station had a kitchen space and a number of fly-by-night operations operated there over the years, mostly Mexican and/or soul food. The only one I really remember was "El Taco Loco", which had an anthropomorphic hard taco with sunglasses, and in the 2010s had The Remnant from Nawlins, which was the ONLY space to ever graduate into a full restaurant (now at 1416 Groesbeck Street, which it's been since around 2016, give or take a year).

The Holik name seems to be connected to the former owner of a house at 614 Holleman demolished in the second redevelopment when the original Checkers was closed and demolished around 2023, I remember passing the house by glowing mercury vapor lamp to the west side of the house, and was part of the same property. It finally went away in the redevelopment. Unfortunately, I have no pictures of the old property but here's the Google Street View of 604 Holleman.

UPDATE 05-04-2025: Clarified a few things regarding Aggieland Food Mart and its non-open status, as well as making a bit more clear that the 1997 redevelopment was redeveloped completely again.

<sup>1. Tax records indicate it would reopen as "Aggieland Food Mart" soon after, but this appears to have not been the case. Want ads mention "I have the building, just need $ for stock". The tax record expired a year later.
2. Also known as 604-B Holleman.</sup>