And don't forget the Alabama BookStop

I've expended a lot of electronic ink lately on the plight of the River Oaks Theater, but as today's Chron reminds us, it's not the only historic building that's currently being threatened by the bulldozer.

Whole Earth Provision Co. has shared the Shepherd Alabama Shopping Center with Bookstop since the mid-'80s.

Joe Jones, one of Whole Earth's owners, said last week that representatives of Weingarten Realty Investments, which owns the center, have approached him about the possibility of razing the historic building.

"They said, 'What if we wanted to redevelop?' " said Jones. "We said, 'We'll talk to you.' We're not going to close down the conversation."

Jones said Whole Earth has 17 years left to run on its lease on the store, currently the Austin company's only Houston location. At 5,600 square feet, it's the smallest in the chain. Though the location performs well, Jones said Whole Earth believes its new stores should be roughly three times that size - so he's open to new ideas.

"We've been talking to Weingarten for a long time," he said. "Real estate guys think long-term. With them, the wheel turns real slow. None of this is happening tomorrow."

Any change, he said, would be at least two or three years away.

Which means that any action in response to this would need to get started now. Once these things are in motion, it doesn't take long for them to become irreversible.

A few years ago, Kaldis Realty sold its share of the shopping center to Weingarten Realty Investors. "I have a different mind-set than a developer like Weingarten," explains Andrew Kaldis, who for years managed the property. "We decided to part ways."

Kaldis has gone on to develop many historic properties, including the buildings that house Gravitas and Hugo's restaurants; the 1909 Scanlan Building downtown, now loft office space; and the Villa Serena, a 1913 orphanage that's now a condominium building in Midtown.

Finding new uses for historic properties is a challenge, said Kaldis. "You have to specialize in urban development and go out and find tenants who fit the space instead of building space that fits the tenants."

He noted that his projects have been profitable and said historic properties such as the Alabama are well worth saving.

"Those buildings add personality to the city in a way that we've neglected over the years," he said. "And my real reward is that those buildings will be there after I'm gone."

At this rate, I wouldn't count on that.

I think it's pretty obvious at this point that if people in Houston want to save the Alabama Bookstop and the River Oaks Theater, they need to take action now. It's great that some high profile players have gotten involved - usually, this sort of thing take a lot of grassroots work before it bubbles up to the surface of public consciousness - but what's the goal here, and who's leading the charge? I say the goal is a review of the city's historic preservation statutes, with an eye towards creating new guidelines, incentives, regulations, whatever works best to save these two buildings and create a framework for preserving the Alabama Bookstops and River Oaks Theaters of the future. As I said before, I think incentives of some form are likely to be the best received option, but I'm not married to any one method, and there's sometimes a fine line between a tax incentive and a giveaway. But that's the goal, and anyone who has agitated over this, including all of the petition signers should find a way to bring it about if this is what they really want. As that includes me, I'm going to do a little asking around to see what I can do. Stay tuned.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on August 07, 2006 to Elsewhere in Houston | TrackBack