The fate of a century-old storefront at the corner of East 12th and Comal streets remains up in the air, with debate over its merits as preservation-worthy intensifying at the city’s Historic Landmark Commission.
1500 E. 12th St. landed on commissioners’ radar last month, when an application to demolish the structure from owner and real estate developer Eureka Holdings prompted an outpouring of conflicting neighborhood sentiments and accusations of bad faith negotiation tactics. While the city’s Preservation Office has recommended initiating historic zoning, commissioners are opting to further examine evidence, voting 9-1 to postpone the case to next month’s meeting.
The case for preservation centers largely on the site’s past lives as a German grocery and beer hall and later a Black barbershop and music venue, which staffers say illustrate the neighborhood’s shifting demographic patterns throughout the 20th century. The 2016 East Austin Historic Resources Survey also identifies the site as a potential landmark, noting its proximity to the I.Q. Hurdle House and Southgate-Lewis House in a bid to keep the historic corner intact.
Still, a handful of neighbors were not compelled by staff’s findings, taking to the stand to argue that their own memory of the site, which has sat largely abandoned since the 1970s, tells a different story.
“This was a house of ill repute, where many illegal activities went on late into the night … this house does not represent the best of the East Austin community, but the worst,” said former reverend and East Austinite Freddie Dixon. “This building does not deserve the same recognition as landmarks like the historic Kealing Jr. High School, it would be an affront to the Black community of Austin.”
Others took fewer pains to beat around the bush. “I don’t mean to be crude here, but most of us know this site as a whorehouse, or a crack den,” said neighbor Elliot Dew, who runs local computer repair service Mr. Robot. “Sadly, it happens to many structures in urban areas that last well beyond their life span. Pulling at insignificant straws here is a waste of city resources.”
Eureka Holdings has garnered a reputation of its own in its stewardship of East 12th Street, ruffling feathers both at City Hall and Austin’s Organization of Central East Austin Neighborhoods for neglecting old buildings and failing to redevelop its massive portfolio along the corridor. At 1500 E. 12th, the group has accumulated numerous citations for code violations, including the failure to clean up trash and debris, failure to conduct basic maintenance, and unpermitted construction.
“While the Southgate-Lewis House has become the subject of renewed restoration efforts by the longtime owner, the W.H. Passon Historical Society, sadly, the (I.Q. Hurdle House and 1500 E. 12th) have deteriorated and languished under the eight-year tenure of a Dallas holding company’s entities called Sodosopa Salmon LP and Poisonous Poinsettia LP,” said OCEAN President Nate Jones in a July 2 letter to the Historic Landmark Commission.
“East 12th Street needs buildings that testify to its past and invite new waves of vitality and community within them; the street has its fill of clearance, vacancy, temporary uses, fences and parking lots,” continued Jones. “We need your courage, commitment and sustained attention to prevail in the face of indifferent actors who mock its legacy with LPs that reference South Park songs about gentrification and liken historic structures to toxic flora.”
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East Austin: East Austin is the quadrant of Austin that, generally speaking, is east of IH-35.
historic preservation: Official actions of a municipality such as the City of Austin taken to preserve structures with their jurisdiction. Preservation is often accompanied by a property tax exemption.
