Revisit-ist: William Penn Hotel

We thought we'd take a stroll by Minute Maid Park to see what was going on at the site of the former William Penn Hotel, located at the corner of La Branch St. and Texas Ave. With the past exploits of Spire Realty, who chose to demolish the hotel one year ago, we were sure that perhaps something interesting was in the works.

Unfortunately, the most activity that has occurred is the pouring of a blacktop and a few hundred parking lines painted. The property is for sale (quaintly named "Block 52"), but it was difficult to find the appraised value since the tax records still show the hotel standing. The mythical building is also technically owned by the aptly named entity "William Penn Building, LP." Also, Spire Realty keeps a picture of the hotel on its homepage as part of a photo montage of some of their properties (in reverence, or perhaps hypomnesia?).

In February 1996, Aaron Wiese bought the property for under a million dollars with prospects of reopening it as a retirement home or homeless shelter (and in September of that year, a moderately priced hotel because of the announcement of plans for the new Astros stadium), but even with the cheap price (and the fact the Chronicle said the hotel was only fifty years old), those plans didn't work out. In late 1999, Spire bought the property, sat on it for six years, then slowly had it demolished over the course of about two weeks. Spire's response to an email inquiring about reasons for demolition simply stated that Nancy Sarnoff's article in the Chronicle "was fairly comprehensive in supporting Spire’s decision to demolish the William Penn Hotel Building." According to the article, it was an "obsolete building," and was "uninhabitable beyond repair" (though that was highly questionable).

With the once-proud buildings that greeted folks around Union Station beginning to be plucked off the horizon, we can only hope that something - anything - will take the Penn's place (unless it's a permanent parking lot, of course). Hopefully someone will step up and follow the footsteps of other developments in the wake of the demolition of Houston's past - the old Astroworld site, Houston Pavilions, the Robinson Public Warehouse site, and Allen House (but not the Taj - suburban-style big box stores don't count).

-more pictures of the William Penn here