It didn’t quite make it 100 years – Alamo Elementary School (formerly Sunset Heights School), 1913-2012.

Via Greater Houston Preservation Alliance – 98 years of history gone in a weekend: Alamo School demolished:

It took wrecking crews a long weekend to eliminate almost a century of Houston Heights history by demolishing the former Alamo Elementary School on E. 27th Street between Harvard and Cortlandt. The original 1913 building and the 1926 addition were both razed. Houston ISD’s Maintenance Department occupied offices in both buildings for many years until just before the property was sold, indicating the masonry buildings were structurally sound. The school site encompasses a 2.3-acre block in the northern section of the Heights; the historic buildings occupied the southwest corner of the site. The property is not located within any of the Heights three historic districts.

In 2011, HISD sold the property to townhouse builder Lovett Homes. GHPA provided information about federal preservation tax incentives to Lovett founder Frank Liu and encouraged him to preserve the historic buildings to enhance new development on the rest of the site and distinguish any future projects from other similar developments. Signs on the property indicate the vacant land is being offered for sale.

Greater Houston Preservation Alliance has worked to preserve the buildings from the time Alamo School first appeared on HISD’s surplus property list. GHPA submitted the report that Texas Historical Commission used to determine the buildings were eligible for listing on the National Register of Historic Places, which meant that adapting the former school buildings for new uses could have qualified for significant federal preservation tax credits.

GHPA provided information about the availability of the federal incentives to HISD’s real estate department and to the private real estate agents representing the school district. GHPA staff also accompanied sympathetic developers on tours of the property, promoted the school to developers seeking historic preservation projects and succeeded in having Alamo School included on Preservation Texas’ list of the state’s most endangered historic places.

Via MD Anderson news:

Demolition day for the Houston Main Building (HMB) will be Sunday, Jan. 8, 2012.
But don’t make plans to come to campus to watch the implosion, which will take place after the sun comes up that morning. It’s a serious construction activity that requires a lot of attention to safety – for our patients, the public and ourselves.
“Implosions are loud and create a lot of dust, and there will be a lot of street closures,” says John Chachere, project director, Capital Planning and Management. “But safety is the most important thing.. For all these reasons, we’re asking that employees not come to campus unless they’re scheduled to work.”
Chachere points out that the exclusion zone – the area within which no one may be outside during the implosion process – is large. “There’s not any place you can go to view this thing and really see what’s going on.”
The implosion will be videotaped, so everyone will have ample opportunity to watch it later.

Just the First Step

Once the building comes down, the cleanup begins. And that means a lot of hauling.

“It’ll take about 4,000 dump truck loads to get all the debris off the site,” says Chachere. “That’s a lot of trucks and a lot of traffic, primarily at night. Community outreach to our Texas Medical Center neighbors will continue through April as we haul the debris away.”

After it’s all gone, the site will be restored to a park-like area for everybody to enjoy.

Safe Harbor for Wave of Life

A highlight of the park-like area will be the “Wave of Life” statue that’s graced the front of HMB since the 1950s.

Contractors will move the statue to a concrete pad at the west end of the Duncan Building prior to the implosion. The statue will return to its original location after all the debris is hauled away.

Safety perimeter map (PDF):

http://www.arch-ive.org/prudential/safetyperimeter_prudential.pdf