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Aside from the high land prices, the current growth pattern of the metroplex also works against downtown Dallas's ability to attract new corporate headquarters/major offices. Companies typically like their major offices to be easily accessible to employees and visiting consultants/vendors, so they tend to pick a central location. As indicated above, Dallas's demographics are pretty strongly divided by the Trinity River, with most of the white collar workforce living on the north side. Downtown is nowhere near the geographic center of where the white collar workforce lives, rather it is on the southern edge, which can make commuting difficult for many people. Plano, Richardson, and Irving are closer to the center, and they are more easily accessed by freeways, hence their current popularity for corporate campuses. This is also why the current proposal to move the stadium for the Texas Rangers to Downtown Dallas is met with controversy. To add a personal anecdote - my office is currently working with a major corporation on the consolidation/centralization of their Dallas operations. As far as I know, their real estate team never even considered space downtown. In interviewing many of the local employees, we repeatedly heard remarks like "I live in McKinney; I really hope the office is not moving too far south." The company ended up picking space in the University Park area, so employees could get to work via the Tollway, US 75, or Loop 12. All that said, I'd like to see some more towers in Downtown Dallas. However, I think most will be residential or hotels at this point.

I was still a kid when all of this went down, but I do remember a few things about this period in Houston's history: There were a lot of auctions. You saw them advertised everywhere. My aunt and uncle bought a house in Clear Lake in 1987. It was a foreclosure and they paid $18k in cash for it. There was a large apartment complex under construction on Dixie Farm Road in Friendswood that sat unfinished for years. All of the windows were broken out, and the exposed framing eventually started to rot. It was finally torn down, and I think a nursing home was later built on the property. The twin towers on the 610 West Loop near Memorial Park got into some sort of financial trouble and sat vacant until the late 1990s when they were renovated and received new curtain walls. There was another office building at 59 and Weslayen that sat vacant from the mid '80s until it was demolished about 5 year ago. I had some other relatives that lived in Fondren Southwest. Their neighborhood went from very desirable to a complete dump in a very short period. Lots of gas stations closed, as this was also the period that new environmental laws regulating underground storage tanks went into effect. Along with less revenue from lower fuel prices, many operators could not afford to replace their leaking tanks.

Dallas does have land use restrictions, but, more importantly, the local culture in Dallas tends to place emphasis on presentation and appearance. This, in effect, holds developers, architects and urban planners to a higher standard. Also, given the amount of new projects currently under construction in Dallas, there is fierce competition to secure tenants. Aesthetics can be a way to "set oneself apart."

A few years ago, when N. Main St was being rebuilt through Sunset Heights, I remember seeing the work crew excavate some of the old railroad ties from the streetcar line. The rails themselves had been removed in the early 1940s, and probably melted down as scrap for the war effort.

I'm glad they are keeping the historic steel windows. Replacement windows in historic buildings never look right.

I was told that Kenneth Schnitzer originally wanted to buy out the homeowners in Afton Oaks and extend Greenway Plaza all the way to the West Loop. That did not happen, due to a variety of reasons, but it is interesting to think of how different that area of town might be, had his plans come to fruition. I imagine in this scenario, most of the high rise development would be on the East side of 610, rather than the West side. I wonder if that would have had any effect on the chronic vehicular access and traffic problems around the Galleria?

Glad to hear that you are saving a piece of Riverside Terrace, Rachel. In the early 1940s, my grandmother resided with one of the families that lived on your block. (Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly which house, but I know it was on the north side of the street.) She worked as a governess for the family and helped raise their children.

I never ate at The EL. After hearing that a few people got food poisoning from eating there, I was always afraid to try it. I'll probably try the beer place when it opens, though. Glad to hear that Town & City is doing well. We've been patiently waiting for them to open, and we plan to make it over there in the near future.

Here's some more information on Sullivan's stuff in Independence Heights. http://www.richmartinhomes.com/uncategorized/independence-heights-new-homes

WOW!

Interesting, I was just driving down 19th yesterday and had the exact same thought. Bank branches are getting smaller due to the proliferation of online banking and industry consolidation. Several of the banks I work with have been trying to consolidate their real estate portfolios to reduce expenses I wonder if anyone has contacted Chase with a proposal to lease the land, in return for Chase getting an endcap space or pad site in a new development?

I stumbled on this 1954 home movie on Youtube that shows the house in the top right, as well as some of the surrounding area: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o62M-m5Il3Q The first part of the movie was taken at the Cotton Bowl. The Riverside Terrace footage starts around 1:45. It is amazing how the landscaping on that street has matured in the last 60 years.

Glad to see a Riverside Terrace house saved, and congrats to you for appreciating the original architecture and working to restore it! So many homes over there have suffered from very insensitive renovations. I read somewhere that Lenard Gabert had a penchant for grand staircases, which probably originated during his work as a set designer.

To go waaay back in the history of the Village: Someone posted some 1940s photos of University Blvd in this thread back in 2007: http://www.houstonarchitecture.com/haif/topic/13210-village-theater/?hl=%2Bvillage+%2Btheater The building that houses Pier One on Rice Blvd & Kelvin was built as the original Rice Food Market, which later became a local chain. Somewhere on YouTube, there is a home movie that someone took in the mid 1950s while driving around the Rice University area. It has some great footage of University Blvd. Unfortunately, I can't find it right now...

Never heard of a house with an escalator, but the Katherine Mott house in my earlier post had an elevator in it. The elevator was similar to the one in the movie "Lady in a Cage".

Don't these people also own the old Yale Pharmacy building on the next block?

This would certainly be an improvement over the car wash that is currently on the property. Not that my opinion really matters, but I'd rather see the multi-tenant mini strip center than the fast food restaurant option.

According to HCAD, it looks like most of the properties that Sullivan owns in the area were purchased from the Houze developer back in February.

Interesting. I have always wondered if the gentrification line would jump into Independence Heights from Sunset Heights and Garden Oaks, or whether the area would retain a sharp socio-economic divide like Bellaire and Gulfton. Independence Heights is currently pretty rough, but it does possess a number of attributes that could make it attractive to developers and homebuyers priced out of the adjacent Heights and Garden Oaks neighborhoods: The location of Independence Heights provides convenient access to Loop 610 and I-45, linking the area to Downtown, the Galleria, IAH, and the Woodlands.The location of Independence Heights also provides convenient non-freeway access to the popular Inner-Loop areas west of Downtown, as well as the increasingly popular Garden Oaks/Oak Forest area directly to the West.There is a lot of vacant land in the area that easily lends itself to redevelopment.Land prices are considerably lower than the adjacent Heights and Garden Oaks neighborhoods.The lack of land use restrictions in the area can facilitate redevelopment.It's definitely an area to watch...

Thanks for posting. I remember the animated neon of the Bellaire/Bel Air, and it was nice to see it again.

This is good news, and I hope the owner's plans come to fruition. David Bucek does great work.

My favorite house in Riverside Terrace is this Regency number on Oakmont: https://www.flickr.com/photos/33514962@N05/3237317141/ However, my all-time favorite was this now-demolished Katherine Mott Tudor that was located at the intersection of Riverside Drive & North MacGregor: https://www.flickr.com/photos/33514962@N05/5907275511/

I know I have seen the Tommie Vaughn sign lit fairly recently, though I never paid enough attention to it to know if it is lit regularly. The "Tommie Vaughn" side is blue neon, but I think the "Ford" side is white neon. Never seen the sign rotate, though...

Some more memories: There was a local cell service provider named "Houston Cellular".Stør Furniture opened on I-10 and later became Ikea.There was a restaurant called Danna's on North Post Oak that was demolished to reconfigure the 610/I-10 interchange.River Oaks Body Shop on Kirby was a restaurant called Frankie Mandola's.Katy Mills Mall opened at the end of the decade.Pin Oak Stables was demolished to make way for Apartments, a store called Incredible Universe, and a Home Depot. Incredible Universe went under and the building became a satellite campus for HCC.Pharx-More stores.Albertson's entered the local grocery market.There were problems with gangs and the ways they initiated new members. One gang rented a room in the hotel at BW8 & I-10 and had new members shoot out car windows on the freeway.Marshall Field's left the Houston market.

I remember Wolfe Nursery on Beechnut. Just west of the nursery was Builder's Square, which was briefly redeveloped into a store called Pace; after that it was torn down to make way for Lowe's. Next door to Builder's Square was a Toy Store called Children's Palace, which was later redeveloped into a music store. I think a bike store is there now? A few more memories: Sharpstown Mall was still respectable in the early part of the decade, but we stopped shopping there around 1995 because of the increased crime in the parking lot.A redeveloped Meyerland Plaza opened ~1996Video Central rented VHS tapes and video games.The Rockets and the Houston Aeros played their games in the Summit, which later became Compaq Center, which later became Lakewood Church.There were large street parties held on the Richmond strip after the Rockets won the Championship two years in a row.There was a lot of vacant land along the south side of 59 between S. Shepherd and 610 that was redeveloped towards the end of the decade.An outdoor concert venue called "Lone Star Amphitheater" was located on Westpark, just outside of 610. It was later converted into a church called "Prayer Mountain". I think it was demolished in the late '90s to make room for the Westpark Tollway.Many of the high-rise condo towers around the Galleria were built in the later part of the decade.The Houston Chronicle bought the Houston Post in the early part of the decade.The Bel-Air Theater on Bellaire Blvd closed, and was converted to an indoor playland for kids called "Discovery Zone"."Celebration Station" on 59 and "Fame City" on Beechnut were popular places for kids.The Village Arcade shopping center opened in Rice Village (~1994?). A few years later, The Village Arcade II opened on the next block.The Hard Rock Cafe was still on Kirby, and it had a '60s-era Thunderbird mounted on a pole.There was a car dealership (Buick or Cadillac?) on the SE corner of S Shepherd and Westheimer in the early part of the decade. Across the street was an Academy Sporting Goods Store and an Oak Farms Dairy facility.Dietrich Coffee House on Westheimer was a great place to hang out and people watch.Bookstop on S. Shepherd was an awesome book store.There was a movie theater on West Gray (Cineplex Odeon?).The Jeff Davis hospital sat abandoned on Allen Parkway as a giant creepy Art Deco monument.A blighted Allen Parkway Village sat next door, adding to the creepiness.The rice mills were still standing on Studemont in the early part of the decade.Washington Avenue and the surrounding area was in pretty rough shape.We would roll up the car windows and lock the doors when we drove through the Heights area.The long-vacant Rice Hotel downtown was renovated and re-opened as the "Rice Lofts." "Enron Field" opened about the same time. There was a lot of hope that these developments would revitialize downtown. They eventually did, but I think it took much longer than everyone anticipated.It snowed in the early part of the decade (~1992 or 1993?)There were some big floods around 1995 or 1996 that caused many businesses and schools to close. I seem to remember there being a lot of damage in the Kingwood area.