A multi-million dollar mess has neighbors in an upscale Houston neighborhood looking for answers. They’re tired of seeing a big, empty building with boarded-up windows, broken doors and dead landscaping.
“An eyesore, quite ugly,” said Jan O’Brien, who passes the building on her morning walks near Braes Bayou.
The old Arabia Shriners Temple on North Braeswood has sat abandoned since 2007.The building now belongs to Tishman Speyer, a worldwide real estate developer. But the company has yet to do any developing on the property appraised by the county at $10 million.
I work near there, and drive by it often. It’s just sad to see it like that.
I blogged about this as the sale was happening. The price tag at the time was said to be $21 million, which seems even more ridiculous now than it was then. Someone’s gonna get a bargain at the foreclosure auction one of these days, that’s for sure.
I live in the apartment complex across the street, so I see a lot of the empty shrine. What worries me most is the crime and other curious ongoings that occur there – I just wish the company that owns it would do something to make it more secure. Increased occurrence of crime at that location makes the area less safe for everyone else.