Toudouze Building is spared demolition bid in council vote
A city panel rejected a request Wednesday to demolish the Toudouze Building on the near South Side and replace it with a car wash.
The structure at Pleasanton Road and South Flores Street was once a store run by South Texas businessman August Charles “A.C.” Toudouze and a community center, but has sat vacant for years.
Earlier this year, preservationists pursued a landmark designation for the building over the objection of the owner, High Cay LLC, which bought it in 2018. The Historic and Design Review Commission supported the designation, and City Council ultimately approved it.
High Cay LLC is registered to GFR Entity Management LLC, which is tied to local developer Mark Granados.
Granados contends that renovating the roughly 21,400-squarefoot building would be too costly. The structure doesn’t meet the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act, Texas Accessibility Standards or city codes, including parking stipulations, making it challenging to redevelop.
High Cay LLC provided an undated estimate showing a multimillion dollar loss for the site’s renovation based on an investment of $3.2 million.
But city staff said the developer failed to demonstrate an unreasonable economic hardship “due to the lack of financial burden of proof documentation, the absence of evidence of good faith exploration of reuse options, as well as lack of active marketing of the property.”
HDRC members agreed Wednesday.
The panel also gave the go-ahead Wednesday to plans to refurbish the YWCA, or Henry Terrell Building, a circa-1909 structure at 212 N. Alamo St. that
sits within an “opportunity zone.” The program was created by President Donald Trump’s 2017 tax overhaul.
The work includes replacing windows and installing an aluminum storefront system, repairing the masonry and adding entrance
canopies on the façade along North Alamo.
Henry Terrell, a lawyer and the son of local businessman Edwin Terrell, built the structure, according to a letter by architecture firm Ford, Powell & Carson submitted to the commission. The letter also
states that the owner, listed as Alamo QOZB LLC, plans to seek historic tax credits.
Clearinghouse Community Development Financial Institution is handling the redevelopment as part of an opportunity zone project, said Chris Mcmartin, opportunity fund manager
at the California lender.
Plans call for office space with ground-floor retail.
Mcmartin said they plan to retain “the historical look and feel of the property.”