[CHRON] Houston Could Lose River Oaks Theatre to Barnes & Noble?

WTF???

We could lose both River Oaks Theatre and the Alabama Theater Bookstop (nevermind Three Brothers Bakery) to a ****ing Barnes & Noble??? You have GOT to be ****ting me.

ENDANGERED LANDMARKS
Historic theater could soon fade into history
Tenants told of unconfirmed plan to raze portions of the River Oaks Shopping Center
By LISA GRAY
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

Three Houston landmarks, including the Landmark River Oaks Theatre and the Bookstop in the former Alabama Theater, have been declared endangered by the Greater Houston Preservation Alliance.
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The alliance has learned, spokesman David Bush said Friday, that two buildings in the River Oaks Shopping Center could face demolition within two years.

The center is controlled by Weingarten Realty Investors, a Houston-based company that owns and manages about 300 retail properties in the southern United States.

A Weingarten spokeswoman would not confirm the company's plans for the shopping center.

"We don't have any official statement at this time," Amy Jones, Weingarten's director of marketing, said Friday. Other Weingarten officials did not return phone calls.

The GHPA has repeatedly tried to discuss the buildings with Weingarten Realty but has been rebuffed, Bush said.

But a half-dozen tenants of the River Oaks Shopping Center told the Houston Chronicle that a Weingarten's leasing agent informed them of plans to raze parts of the historic shopping center.

The first domino to fall, they said, would be the River Oaks Shopping Center building at the northeast corner of Shepherd and West Gray. Erected in 1937, the curved art deco building is "of national significance," architecture historian Stephen Fox said.

Three Brothers Bakery co-owner Robert Jucker said that when he confronted the leasing agent about rumors the building was to be demolished, she confirmed them, and told him that it would remain standing through the end of this year. "But she wouldn't give me that in writing," he said.

The bakery, located for 17 years in the strip between the Black-Eyed Pea restaurant and Jos. A. Bank clothing store, is on a month-to-month lease, Jucker said.

A number of River Oaks Shopping Center tenants — including owners of Archway Gallery, Chase's Closet and Laff Stop — said that a Weingarten's leasing agent told them the Black-Eyed Pea building would be replaced with a multistory Barnes & Noble.

Archway is located near the River Oaks Theatre on the south side of West Gray. At a meeting with the gallery's owners in March, a Weingarten's leasing agent detailed the company's plans to tear down their entire building — including the theater — in early 2008, Archway co-owner Marsha Harris said.

Weingarten offered the gallery other accommodations until its lease runs out in December 2008, she said.

"They're proceeding apace," Harris said. "I think it's real stupid and short-sighted if they pull that theater down."

Harris and other tenants said their leasing agent described plans to erect a high-rise residential building in the theater's place — possibly preserving part of the theater's exterior, but none of its art deco interior.

Opened in 1939, the River Oaks is Houston's oldest functioning movie theater.

Bill Banowsky, CEO of Landmark Theatres, wrote in an

e-mail that Landmark is "100 percent committed to the River Oaks Theatre," and that Landmark recently signed a lease extension. Landmark spokeswoman Melissa Raddatz would not say how long that lease lasts.

Celeste Williams, a lecturer at the University of Houston's Gerald D. Hines School of Architecture, has studied Houston's earliest movie theaters extensively, and notes that in many cities the historic buildings still function either as movie theaters or auditoriums.

"There aren't many buildings I'd lie down in front of bulldozers to save," she said. "The River Oaks theater is one of them."

In addition to the two segments of the River Oaks center, the preservation alliance placed the art deco Alabama Shepherd Shopping Center on its endangered list because of fears that Barnes & Noble would close the Bookstop if it built in River Oaks. Weingarten also controls The Alabama Center.

Responding to questions via e-mail, Barnes & Noble Inc. spokeswoman Carol Brown wrote that the company had "made no announcement of plans to build in the River Oaks Shopping Center." Brown wouldn't say whether such plans existed.

She also said the chain had no "immediate" plans to move from the Bookstop location.

In 1989, Bookstop won national attention for its creative preservation of the Alabama movie theater, built in 1939. Nine years later, Barnes & Noble bought the Bookstop chain.

Houston's historic preservation laws are among the weakest in the country, and the vast majority of the city's historic buildings can be destroyed without even a waiting period for public comment.

Preservationists have responded by mounting intelligence operations to ferret out plans to raze historic buildings.

Those "cloak-and-dagger operations," Bush said, "are sad, but it's what we've got to do if we're going to draw public attention before the bulldozers arrive."

 

Agreed. What's so frustrating is that there are already multiple Bookstops (owned by B&N) and Barnes and Nobles within a few miles. Why destoy landmarks for a disposable chain store? Why not build over in the warehouse district like Target is doing off Taylor and I-10? Cheaper land and no destruction of anything that anyone cares about.

 

I understand the nature of impermanence, but even Buddhists decried the destruction of ancient Buddha statues in Afghanistan and they still decry the occupation of Tibet. This is a landmark and if it is torn down, I will survive, but I'd rather it not be torn down. Some things are worth fighting for.