Saturday, June 16, 2012

At Park Place and Texas Avenue

An unexciting strip mall. (Photo by author, 4/20)

Before the current strip center here was built around late 2005, the site at 1808 Texas Avenue South was originally Long John Silver's No. 5347 (may have originally gone by the chain's old name "Long John Silver's Seafood Shoppe") in 1980, and shut down early 2005 when the general manager was using the store to deal drugs.

The strip center today has a Verizon store (changed logos after the parent company did), "Cash Store" (payday loans--and apparently that IS its legal name), and Naked Fish sushi restaurant. Naked Fish remains open despite less-than-excellent health scores and originally the home of Doc Green's.

Doc Green's, a soup/salad/sandwich chain out of the Atlanta area, made its first stand in Texas here in late 2007 (and in Austin a few months later) with a logo that is no longer used by the company. Unfortunately, neither one did particularly well. The Austin one closed up in less than a year due to back taxes being owed, and the College Station one died a similar death.

In July 2012, Jenny Jenkins wrote in to say this:

Doc Green's opened February/March 2007. I worked there for a very short time (March to May/June). It was run by some disgruntled former Freebirds managers that thought they could run a restaurant better than Freebirds (where I also worked for a couple years). They couldn't have been more wrong. They were so horribly disorganized that I can't believe they lasted. For example, they were open for months and still hadn't installed paper towel dispensers. They couldn't keep up with ordering and wouldn't order the same things so the menu changed constantly just because they'd run out of stuff. It just was really poorly done. I'm not sure when exactly they closed, but I know it was longer than expected. They were pretentious for a restaurant that casual but the food was pretty good.

Doc Green's closed at the end of 2008 with Naked Fish replacing it in early 2009. Naked Fish continued to operate for about fifteen years before closing. Cash Store was also not an original tenant, it was originally Systek Computing. Systek moved to a strip center behind the newer plaza when it was built by 2011 and ultimately moved on.

UPDATE 04-23-2024: After being last updated in April 2020 with a photo, I went back through the post and updated it.
UPDATE 08-27-2024: Updated post to add in when the LJS drug bust happened. Also, Naked Fish closed back in April 2024. Nothing has replaced it yet.

Saturday, June 2, 2012

Ramada Inn / University Tower / Plaza Hotel

University Tower, taken from a car parked catty-corner at what was Diamond Shamrock (Project HOLD)


May 24, 2012, 6:40 AM:
There probably hadn't been that many people on the Polo Fields since the last Bonfire burned, and the busiest intersection in the city, University Drive and Texas Avenue, was closed down. The occasion? The Plaza Hotel at 410 Texas Avenue South was coming down. It was rare to see an implosion in College Station (two years later Kyle Field was imploded, but a large-scale structure implosion hadn't been seen before in College Station, or since).

Thousands showed up to the implosion, crowding the streets, making it there quite early (or in some cases, extremely late). It was a diverse crowd: students that stayed for the summer, families, the old and the young alike. After a ten minute delay, 6:40 AM was the moment the quarter-ton of dynamite in the upper levels detonated and the building crumbled to the ground, with one of the four people imploding it. The mayors of College Station and Bryan, TAMU chancellor John Sharp (can't resist a chance at publicity), and a fourth man, Joe Ferreri. When the building cracked apart, with the elevator shaft separating from the building in the process, people cheered, a massive dust cloud blew toward Bryan, and every car alarm in the public viewing area went off.


It was Joe Ferreri that built the hotel and the tower in the first place. The story goes that Joe Ferreri was a successful restaurateur in town, and Texas A&M president James Earl Rudder himself (long before getting a tower, a high school, a dormitory, and a freeway named after him, but after becoming a World War II hero) approached him with a business proposal.

Rudder explained that he was having trouble recruiting faculty to A&M because professors’ wives thought the town was boring. The solution, Rudder proposed, was a hotel across from campus with an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a banquet hall and a faculty club.

Ferreri wasn't so sure. But the former Navy soldier said he knew he couldn’t say no.

"When a general says, 'Do this or this,' you say, 'Yes, sir,'" Ferreri said.

At the time, College Station had no shopping centers of any type, there was nothing on Texas Avenue past what is now George Bush Drive, some scattered subdivisions east of Texas Avenue, and scattered subdivisions out to what is now Holleman, but that was it. Bryan was somewhat larger but it was comparatively farther away from campus.

I can't nail down an exact opening for the Ramada Inn, but from what I can tell it was 1964 (Brazos CAD still had the page up under the 2011 section).

Imagine seeing this beautiful sight traveling down Texas 6! Doesn't it look nice on a postcard?


At the corner of FM 60 and State Highway 6, College Station's first chain motel (maybe?), Ramada Inn, opened, complete with a tall, lit "Uncle Ben", Ramada's mascot. It delivered on all of Mr. Rudder's wishes, and within a decade new hotels and businesses were opening up and down Texas Avenue.

In the early 1960s (1960-1964, I was unable to nail down an exact date), when the Ramada Inn opened, it was the fanciest thing in town. Replacing eight homes that sat on the property, and outstripping the MSC in class and elegance, the Ramada had both motel-oriented rooms and hotel oriented rooms. It was also the only place to drink in town due to dry laws. Like many fancy hotels, during the 1970s, it held a few small retail tenants besides the restaurant, a travel agency and a hair salon (The Hair of Affairs).

Beefeaters: The restaurant in Ramada in the mid-1970s. What exactly is "heavy beef"?

There was another building that was on the premises that was not demolished when the hotel was built, and to this day is still somewhat of a mystery. You can see a picture here, just on the other side of the UtoteM store. Previously, I had written this was a location of a store called "100,000 Auto Parts" which had the same address of Ramada Inn (410 Texas Avenue, which it had up to its demise) but it turned out it was 410 North Texas Avenue in Bryan, so I don't know. I don't ever remember this being occupied in the 21st century. Brazos CAD says it was built in 1949, under "Units on Univ Dr".


Previously, I had written this was a location of a store called "100,000 Auto Parts" which had the same address of Ramada Inn (410 Texas Avenue, which it had up to its demise) but it turned out it was 410 North Texas Avenue in Bryan, so I don't know. I don't ever remember this being occupied in the 21st century.

When the Ramada was getting consistently full on a nightly basis, it had to expand, so parking was placed behind Meadowland (replacing more homes, of course) and a 17 floor tower was built in 1980-1982 (Brazos CAD says it was built in 1984). The construction involved demolishing the east end of the hotel and enclosing the swimming pool under a huge glass skylight. The top four floors were sold out as loft-style housing to wealthy Aggie alumni, all of which got rich off of the oil boom.

By the time it opened, oil prices were bottoming out, with a recession hitting Houston and College Station, with many restaurants outright closing. Jobs were lost. Banks closed. Real estate plummeted. In 1987, Ferreri declared bankruptcy and lost the hotel. I can't find exactly what happened in the process, but it looks like Ramada Inn either closed it or sold it, but the Ramada name ended up going to an existing hotel further south on Texas Avenue and in fall 1989, the building was reopened as a combination hotel and upscale student dormitory. Gone was the Ramada Inn name, as the company was now in a smaller building further down on Texas Avenue. Rather than Joe Ferreri, control went to California-based financier Leonard M. Ross, who renamed the building. UNIVERSITY TOWER shown from red neon to afar, but it soon fell into disrepair, partially because the hotel part disappeared more and more each year until finally becoming student dorms entirely in early 1994. Meanwhile Ferreri ended up going back to restaurants and opened an Italian restaurant in the former Ira's in the Kmart parking lot.

What was once advertising as an upscale hotel in 1990 (see page 4), the horror stories of students living in the tower are talked about to this day throughout message boards and real life. Tales of no hot water or broken down elevators live on and you'll be hard pressed to find someone who lived in and enjoyed the Tower after maybe the first or second year it opened.

At some point, the dorms were converted back into traditional hotel rooms, Ross eventually converted more of the dorms back into regular rooms (with a gala in the top level suite, Buzz Aldrin as the guest of honor) and renamed the hotel as the Plaza Hotel & Suites (this happened around 2004), which replaced the University Tower brandings with a large "P", but it just looked cheap and ugly. All during this time, Ross simultaneously hawked the site to the city in their quest for a convention center site while letting the hotel go to waste (it's worth noting, for instance, that Ross also owned the fourplexes at Meadowland, which were nasty enough to have the hotel at 104 Texas Avenue seal off its back entrance.

In 2007 (about three years after the Plaza name took over), a kid drowned in the swimming pool. In 2008, the kitchen scored a 47 on health reports due to no hot water, which almost never happens (in the University Tower days, it offered a cafeteria, which I bet was nothing worth talking about). After continued problems (and terrible, terrible hotel reviews) the hotel shut down for good in 2010 and sat abandoned for over a year.

It started to get reports of vandals and trespassers, and eventually the windows on the top level suite were knocked out and had to be patched with plywood. In in late 2011 the hotel was sold off as the holdings of Ross went bankrupt. I don't know if he's sold off his $165 million mansion in Beverly Hills yet, but there you go.

In January, the building was planned to be renovated once more as student housing, with the "design [being] complementary to the Texas A&M campus", but the decision was soon made to demolish it after all. After donating the furniture (probably not the mattresses), recycling any material they could, and letting the police and fire departments use it for training, it was gutted, making the building resemble a parking garage (albeit a tall, narrow one) more than anything.

Soon after posting the original version of this post, reader John E. of Southern Retail sent in some shots of what was left. Thanks!




There's also a great video on YouTube on the history of the building and the backstory of Joe Ferreri. There's great period music too, though I couldn't identify all of it.

After the last of the rubble was cleared away, the area sat as a muddy lot for the remainder of 2012. Of course, if you drive by today, you'll find new, huge structures on the site: Northpoint Crossing. Shorter, denser, and larger than the old Plaza, the former home of the tower has completely changed, along with the old Chevron, UtoteM/smoke shop, and Kettle in the area. As of this writing, the new article on Northpoint Crossing isn't done yet, but it will be covered here.

In a way, I'm a bit sad that the hotel had to go that way. Since the the Rise isn't an attractive building, I kind of wish University Tower had done something in the 1990s instead of letting it deteriorate. Rather than the boxy, "generic 70s hotel" tower (the former Holiday Inn/Days Inn/Heaven on Earth Inn in Houston had the same problem), they could've enclosed the entire building in glass, taken out the Gulf/Chevron on the corner of Texas and University, demolished the last of the original motel that wasn't part of the connected portion, closed off Meadowland Drive and turned the whole thing into a combo dorm/retail center, a la Dobie Center, so we could have something to compete with Austin in the 1990s, plus it would've filled in for any fast food establishments that WEREN'T on Northgate already. The downside to doing so would that it still would've been far away from the rest of Northgate (a long walk down past the University Apartments), which I think was/is also why Northpoint Crossing isn't doing as well as it could. With Century Square now built, that's probably less of an issue, but it's still far away from campus proper.

Extensive update June 2019 after 15 previous updates

Thursday, May 31, 2012

Sunset Gardens


Welcome to Sunset Gardens!


3020 South Texas Avenue

Quick, what's between Sonic and Wings N More on Texas Avenue? A bunch of things, actually, including the old location of Petal Patch, a Domino's Pizza, lawyers offices, a fitness place, a pool store, and a burned-out greenhouse/garden store that has been more or less untouched since the late 1980s.

Yes, this is Sunset Gardens. Considered an unclaimed property since 1992, Sunset Gardens was destroyed in a fire in March 1988 by reasons unknown, and supposedly, according to MyBCS, due to the fertilizer contamination, would require lots of cleanup dollars invested if that area was to be ever utilized again.

I have no idea what Sunset Gardens looked like before its devastating fire: seems that there's no readily accessible satellite imagery from those days. However, I do have this ad, which given the original October 1985 publication date, indicates it first opened in 1983. Notice the logo: you can still see in the modern pictures, three decades after it opened. I took a trip out there in spring 2012 to take pictures.

Something MAY be happening out there, I took a trip in late 2017 to see that the site had been cleared, and the sign knocked down. I tried to pull out the iron(?) "sunset" logo but it was bolted in from the other side. Additionally, the fire date is sourced from the fire department yearbook.



Same area, different view



The sign, relatively untouched, even with some of a labelscar attached, in a similar font to the "Parkway Square" font near the Kroger. Unfortunately, it's been marred by the anti-bevel crowd, which is a stupid issue I care little about.



Looking out.



A bit of foundation visible.



This structure was saved, except for the burned puncture.


UPDATE: Added opening date, and the ad based upon which this was derived.
UPDATE 6/17/18: Added fire date and site update. A duplicate picture was also removed.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Southwest Crossing

The sun angle was bad, plus it was taken on my old cell phone camera (circa 2011-2012)

Southwest Crossing was built in the mid-2000s, I believe it was late 2005 or early 2006 when it was completed. As far as a 15-year-old center goes, tenant turnover is surprisingly low, so here's what we got so far, starting from the side closest toward the university (from the left, should you be looking at it head on) and ordered in terms of addresses. You can see a PDF here (archived from here) of the center. Note that they call it "Southwest Crossing at Bee Creek", though the creek behind it is not Bee Creek, though it does drain into it.

The first thing to see is the stand-alone Layne's Chicken Fingers (which I don't have a photo of), the second Layne's ever and their first expansion. Still branded as "Layne's of College Station" as it was known when it opened in November 2006, and was far more modern than their Eastgate store. This has the address of 1301 Wellborn Road. When it opened and for many years before the franchisee bought the parent company, it offered nothing but chicken fingers, Texas toast, fries, and small containers of potato salad and sauce. The cups didn't even have Layne's branding. With the purchase of the stores by the franchised version, they now offer milkshakes and additional sauce varieties.

Behind that was originally C.C. Creations at 1311 Wellborn, and the first big tenant to open, moving from their warehouse center on Holleman. Interestingly, in 2013, they moved out, consolidating with the Trophies location (Harvey Mitchell Pkwy. and Southwood) into the former Red Oak Sportswear building (very close to where they were before). Later on, this became a fly-by-night tutoring operation (one-on-one, not a group "here's how to pass the tests" type) called Aggieland Tutoring. Around 2017, part of the space became Texas State Optical (now MyEyeDr), and another part briefly became Vivint Smart Home. A section still remains vacant and is rumored to become a restaurant (a drive-through was installed but never used).

The next building, 1411 Wellborn, has four spaces. The first one (Ste. 100) was originally (2006-2007) The Beverage Oasis, a liquor store, then Haix Stores, a shoe store that operated from summer 2009 to 2013 (the signage remained up for a while after that). Tacobar replaced it in fall 2016 and closed in late 2021 in preparation of moving to 404 Jane Street. Nick the Greek opened in suite 100 in February 2023 to replace Tacobar. It is the first Nick the Greek location in Texas (and the gyros are excellent). Suite 200 was originally New York Subs (1411 Wellborn Ste. 200) which opened in 2007 (reported as "New York NY Fresh Deli" but the signage was New York Subs). I can't confirm or deny it was the same restaurant at 301 College Main. In early 2009 it was rebranded as Sub Culture (legally overnight, likely because the master franchising company out of Arizona went under) and finally closed in 2011. In early 2012 it became "Harold's Hot Dogs & Ice Cream", a local outfit serving hot dogs and ice cream. Harold's itself was also a rename from the displaced Maggie Moo's from Rock Prairie Crossing. Harold's also expanded the menu to hot dogs but it closed in June 2014. (While some bemoaned the loss of its oatmeal cookie ice cream, promises to add a fryer to add french fries went unfulfilled...how could you serve hot dogs but not fries?). In spring 2015, it reopened as another Kolache Rolf's location but closed permanently in 2018. It is currently planned to be a location of Mochinut, which will sell mochi donuts and Korean corn dogs. The next tenant (Ste. 300) opened in January 2006 as University Book Store, one of the first tenants to land in the center. It only lasted a few months before the chain went under and ended up being a leasing office for the Woodlands of College Station apartment complex for several years. It ended up being Anytime Fitness, then Aerofit Express (closing before the chain was sold), and finally Marethouse Fitness, a locally-owned fitness center that had signage up during COVIDmania but later opened by late 2020/early 2021. Suite 500 (no 400) The Beach Tanning Salon (Ste. 400) was one of the original tenants opened in 2006, but it closed by the end of 2014. Later it became the similar Tiki Tan, but it closed in the summer of 2019.

The last building has two tenants with the address of 105 Southwest Parkway, holding a C&J Barbecue (third location) and Hungry Howie's Pizza, the latter being the first College Station-Bryan location in town. Both opened in 2006. The Hungry Howie's is still the only HH's Pizza in the county, as a second location in town closed after a few years). Here's two more pictures from 2012 of the center building.




Two more things that weren't covered in the original post is Copper Creek Condos behind the shopping center at 301 Southwest Parkway (built in 2016). Predating the center (but listed as "pad site available", so it's up for redevelopment) is a Citgo. The Citgo was built with a 7-Eleven in 1986. In the early 1990s the market was sold to E-Z Mart, which began to shed stores later. Since around 2002 it has been a Zip'N, though as a brand name is kind of meaningless.

UPDATE 02-15-2024: Everything has been updated in a major rewrite, from the fate of Layne's to the legacy Citgo. A new PDF was added, too.
UPDATE 04-21-2024: After their first opening got canned, Mochinut opened for the first time on March 27, 2024. I was their first customer.
UPDATE 08-14-2024: Suite 500 was later Palm Beach Tan (as of 2022), in August 2024 Half-Baked Goodness, a cookie shop, opened in the space.