Battle may be brewing over social service agency's land

We've often driven past the corner of Allen Parkway and Shepherd and wondered just how that chunk of prime real estate has remained home to a social service agency instead of a high-dollar, high-rise apartment building. Seems the city of Houston has wondered that, too — and now it looks like the city is going to boot the Center Serving Persons with Mental Retardation and sell the property to the highest bidder.

At issue here is the lease The Center signed with former Mayor Lewis Cutrer back in 1963, which called for the agency to pay the city $1 a year in rent for the next 99 years. The problem, the city says, is that the city charter limits such agreements to 30 years. "But a mayor signed it," you're saying to yourself. "Couldn't the city make an exception in this case?" Sure, maybe — if the land The Center sits on wasn't extremely desirable real estate that could be worth as much as $26 million. "That's Class A. It doesn't get any better," real estate broker Stan Creech said of the property, which is right in the center of town, is adjacent to the Buffalo Bayou greenbelt and commands spectacular skyline views.

City officials say selling the property would benefit more people in the long run by bringing millions of dollars to city coffers, but The Center's leaders wonder where they would go — and how they would pay for new facilities on their $11 million annual budget. The agency currently operates a work site, a vocational training center, an adult day care and a dormitory for 200 residents on the property, and Executive Director Eva Aguirre said the agency is the primary support structure for many of the people it serves: "We are their family," she told the Chronicle. Gwen Seammen, whose 64-year-old son Max has lived on the property since the dormitory opened in the early 1970s, said she's not sure what a move would mean: "I'm really, really worried," she said. "[Residents] have a lot of freedom there, and yet they have a lot of supervision. ... It's his home, and I don't know what's going to happen if they close it."

Mayor Bill White said he offered to let The Center lease the property at a rate that's closer to market value, but didn't get a response; Jack Manning, a board member at The Center, told the AP that the market rate is too high. The city has reportedly also offered to help the agency find a new location: "We are trying to make sure that we use the resources that we have to help the most number of people that are most in need," White said. According to a March 22 letter from Bob Christy, the city's director of real estate, plans call for the bid process on the land to take place in the next six to nine months, giving The Center about three years to relocate pending approval of a sale by City Council — but it sounds like that may not be a done deal just yet. "I'm trying not to be real combative about it, but, doggone it, at the end of the day, if it comes to it, we'll fight," Manning said. "We are not going to knuckle down and just move out."