As I mentioned for what is now the post covering Foxhole Lounge, there used to be a whole post called "Stories of the West Loop" which was developed into other posts on this blog. That post also talked about the areas "beyond the border", the places where while they weren't technically far away from home, they were enough out of the way that I never saw them unless I was going on a bigger trip. Texas Hall of Fame, was of course, one of them.
Seeing as how most of the College Station-focused FM 2818 posts have been developed in some form or fashion, there needs to be more on Bryan specifically (and while Bryan content has increased in recent years--of the 110 posts from the 1/1/2020 post of O'Reilly Auto Parts Texas Avenue, College Station and 3/1/25's On the Border, nearly a third of them have been in Bryan, and I expect the trend to continue.
Most of what I could say about Texas Hall of Fame, the warehouse-like building that sat here since September 1978 and was another sight off of FM 2818/Harvey Mitchell Parkway when traveling that direction was written by The Eagle in 2003. If you still deign to give The Eagle your money you can see at the top of the page here. But I don't like broken pages and pop-ups, and neither should you, so here are the scans reproduced below.
New ownership kept the Hall open for another year but in late December 2011, the Hall cancelled their New Years Eve events and closed permanently. The loss of the area's biggest (and most inclusive—the other dance halls catered exclusively to college students) was a mournful one, and the dance hall did not reopen (nor did a similar project announced in early 2012, the "College Station Hall of Fame", which was to be built somewhere in south College Station).
While the Hall was north of the Villa Maria/Harvey Mitchell Parkway intersection (it was north of where Panda Express is now with the address of 649 N. Harvey Mitchell Pkwy.1, the whole thing was redeveloped as a strip center called Rudder's Landing, anchored by a new Walmart (Supercenter) which opened in March 2014.
I imagine the opening of the "west side Walmart" really cannibalized the recently-opened Townshire Walmart Neighborhood Market, but even with that the whole development was a bit anemic. Despite some plans with buildings on the north side (where the Texas Hall of Fame actually was), it remained little more than just the Walmart itself and a few smaller stores (most of the stores in the PDF in the smaller building joined in 2014-2015). Notably, Panda Express (639 North Harvey Mitchell Pkwy.) opened December 2014. Chick-fil-A joined in the early 2020s at 1542 West Villa Maria Road.
According to the most recent PDF (archived from here), the second phase of Rudder's Landing will not only incorporate the old Texas Hall of Fame space but Bryan Mobile Truck & Trailer Repair (at 683 North Harvey Mitchell Pkwy., former home of Bryan's Central Freight Lines terminal) would be torn down for Atwoods.
The PDF has several things that aren't there (yet) including the oil change place, Greater Texas Federal Credit Union (hope is dimming for that one as they gave up on their proposed Deacon/FM 2154 location amid rumors of heavy losses), and Dollar Tree. The Rapid Express Car Wash ended up opening as a Club Carwash by the time it opened in 20222, and the Subway in the shopping center moved there sometime around 2014 because of a claim of loss of business at the gas station location due to the Villa Maria/FM 2818 overpass.3
1. This only was bestowed around 1998-1999, I could find NO records of an address for them prior to this.
2. This was due to a buyout of the chain.
3. This is according to Centex Subway. Due to my experience in dealing with them I don't believe this to be the case as Popeyes continues to operate successfully, and during that timeframe there wasn't a new development that they didn't jump on. Keep in mind that there was ALREADY another Subway inside of the Walmart.
