Abandoned Quality Suites

The direct sun hurt this photo, but I think it gets the point across.

I first stumbled upon this hotel (at 3610 Highway 6 South) in fall 2019 to find it closed despite being a fairly modern-looking hotel (it was built in 2005) and on the highway. All the signage was up and graffiti had not yet hit the building, but the high weeds and tattered entryway said otherwise, nor any sign that the hotel would be opening soon (it was removed from the Choice Hotels website). Apparently, the hotel closed by early 2018 (mentioned on Yelp's "Tips" which seem to have disappeared in a recent redesign) due to a flooding problem and it never reopened. At this rate I can't see it reopening as a Quality Suites any time soon, and even without a virus decimating tourist trades, there's a lot of hotel competition that didn't exist when Quality Suites first went up. Despite being on the freeway as well, its access is a bit difficult, either requiring the southbound exit to Texas and staying on the frontage road, or working around Longmire and going back to Ponderosa. There's a good chance that it was planned before the new Rock Prairie exit was made, not only did the old Rock Prairie exit actually allow access to the hotel very easily (even southbound) in 2005, it did not visually obscure it.

According to one of the old Choice Hotel locators I have (from 2007), the hotel has 81 rooms, a swimming pool, exercise room, meeting room, and a few other modest features (like guest laundry).

Even if the hotel industry was better (overbuilding had gotten to be a problem), Quality Suites shows no signs of reopening anytime soon. The card reader on the south entrance has been ripped out, exterior maintenance is slipping, rooms have been dismantled (mattresses leaning up, etc.), and the lobby is trashed. It would not take much to reopen it under a different name, but it requires some work that the current owners have not put in yet. Personally, I'm surprised the high weeds have not gotten the pressure from city code yet.

In terms of placement, this is the very first address (apart from Veronica's Country Corner, an outlier in every sense of the word) that focuses on a Highway 6 address that isn't on the Earl Rudder portion, and the first hotel covered in a while (not since La Quinta).

UPDATE 10-24-2023: In early 2023 this hotel reopened as Wingate by Wyndham. ([defunct] removed).
UPDATE 12-25-2023: I wanted to mention that the hotel is dual-branded as a Hawthorn Suites as well.

Brake Check

Brake Check, pictured here in 2014 (by author).

It's Thursday, and there's no more posts in the backlog to feature. Time to make a new post, luckily there's source material to whip something up. In this case, it's Brake Check on University Drive East (only Brake Check in town as of this writing). Originally, when it opened in 2007, the text above was different ("Alignment" was originally "Shocks & Struts", for instance). Before Brake Check opened, it was a Sonic Drive-In, one of the first in town (the other was at 914 South Texas Avenue in Bryan, which remained open and was completely rebuilt in the mid-2000s). It was open even according to the 1980 phone book, likely opened in the 1970s. This location closed around 2004 (possibly 2003) and stood vacant for a few years before it was torn down. (There was a gap of a few years before a new Sonic at Cooner and Texas opened).

The new Brake Check did not have access to Poplar as Sonic once did, as Sonic was once part of a 1970s-era "restaurant row" with Egg Roll House (now Jimmy John's) and the Pizza Hut.

4.0 & Gone

April 2020 picture again, later on we'll get to some livelier but older ones.

With Hullabaloo Hall now covered, I'm going to try to do a complete "walk" down University Drive, excluding the things already covered. What would be 201 University was a gas station (Magnolia brand) demolished when the underpass was originally built, 203 University was Deluxe Diner most of my life and Chimy's Cerveceria for the better part of the last decade, and now we get to 205/207 University.

It is a building with metal siding, 205 University. While it was an eatery called M&M Grill (not to be confused with A&M Grill of the distant past) in the mid-1990s, it was later the flagship location of DoubleDave's PizzaWorks (moved from 211 University), until it moved off of Northgate for good in 2006. It is unknown as to when it was built, one resource (Northgate Historic Resources) says mid-1960s, while BCAD says 1987. (Presumably, 1987 was when major upgrades were made to the building...with "New York Bagel" possibly being the tenant in question, which preceded M&M Grill as per a 1992 document). As of now, 1960s will be marked when the building was built.

This building also has the address of 207 University (though it has not used it in years), likely used for an upper level area (both what is now as of this writing, Icon Night Club and Loupot's had the same thing).

As of this writing, the libraries are closed so it is difficult to find more information on the building's history, but a 2005 phone book seems to place DoubleDave's at "209A", even though 209 (next door) was Aggieland Flowers & Gifts (and did not have a separate entrance).

By 2007, DoubleDave's was gone (still barely visible under the new Schotzi's sign) and replaced with "Schotzi's & Skyybar", with Skyybar presumably on the upper level of the building (the area above 209 University had not yet been built). Sometime around 2013 or 2014, Skyybar simply became Sky Bar but in 2015 Schotzi's folded entirely and was replaced by 4.0 & Go, formerly located at Park Place Plaza.

As you can see, 4.0 & Go is gone from Northgate. Presumably, the high rent drove them off, despite a workable parking plan. By spring 2020 (before A&M was closed for the semester due to virus fears), 4.0 & Go was out of Northgate, listed on their website (as of this writing) as being "in transit".

UPDATE 12-13-2021: A drive-by of the building reveals that the building has been re-tenanted as "Good Bull Icehouse" (no relation to the now-defunct Good Bull BBQ). [bar] has replaced [defunct] in the sidebar.

Hullabaloo Hall and the Three Dorms Before It

The world was shut down in April 2020.
It has a long time since I added any campus TAMU buildings to this site, the last official one being added was...Scoates Hall, back in December 2014.

I used to work at Texas A&M University briefly in 2017, and I had ideas to add a number of new entries focused on TAMU buildings after the last post was done and the blog went on hiatus for one and a half years, longer than any gap in its history. As a result, those were basically cancelled, and the one post I actually had been working on, "At Home" on the Boriskie Ranch appeared nearly two years after it was supposed to. (I had also planned a big rewrite of The Commons)

This particular post was supposed to be added back in late 2014 as "Defunct Dorm Roundup" and even was to include information on Law Hall, Puryear Hall, Cain Hall (which had not yet been demolished by that point, but was no longer dorms), and Hotard Hall. Perhaps more on those another day (especially Cain Hall!)

Crocker Hall, Moore Hall, and McInnis Hall were all separate buildings but all immediately adjacent to each other and formed a "U" shape (with the open part of the U facing west, and featuring a small dorm lounge building), and from the side closest to University, it was Crocker, McInnis, and Moore. All three dorms, much like FHK, Walton/Schuhmacher Hall, the Corps dorms, and the Commons dorms, had a dorm culture in each dorm, and shared amongst other dorms. (It's weird. Observation or Internet threads only gives you a taste).

Crocker Hall was built in 1942, looking like this. McInnis was a "balcony"-style dorm built in 1964 (FHK complex is another "balcony" dorm, but culturally different), and Moore Hall was more like Crocker Hall and also built in 1942.

In 2010, the announcement came that the dorms would be replaced with a larger dorm (first on campus since the 1980s) and after the spring 2011 semester, demolition commenced. By October of that year, the dorms, the nearby "dorm lounge", and a basketball court between them and Walton Hall were gone, replaced with a big hole in the ground.

Not too long after, it was revealed the new dorm to replace it would be called Hullabaloo Hall, despite the fact that Texas A&M Galveston had already had a dorm of that same name. When Hullabaloo Hall (the one in College Station) opened in fall 2013 (at 306 University Drive), it included a new stoplight at Boyett and University, and replacing three other driveways (which were no longer as useful due to medians added on University). Dulie Bell was demolished after fall 2013 to provide more parking space for Hullabaloo Hall, and a new basketball court and a new sand volleyball court at the site of the Special Services Building.

While it doesn't have the requisite "swimming pool for wild parties", Hullabaloo Hall had other features similar to off-campus dorms (including "study rooms", etc.) and two retail tenants, a Starbucks, and a convenience store. When Hullabaloo Hall first opened, it featured a location of Rattlers' inside, but the contract ended within a year (now it's just "Aggie Express" or whatever Chartwells calls its convenience stores these days).