LEADER LISTING The Leader • Saturday, May 25, 2019 • Page 1B
Longtime masonic lodge up for sale By Betsy Denson betsy@theleadernews.com In 1964, the cornerstone was laid for Oak Forest Masonic Lodge #1398 at 4721 Watonga Blvd. Chartered two years before, the Oak Forest masons had been meeting at the Fairbanks Masonic Lodge before they got their own building. More than 50 years later, they are on the move again. Kevin Staloch with Staloch Realty Services said the 2-acre lot and 7,000 square foot building are for sale. Longtime freemason Joe Messa, the senior officer for Lodge #1398, said the organization decided to put the building up for sale after much deliberation. He said the roof and air conditioning unit need attention, and the decline of dues-paying members made paying for such repairs difficult. “The building is old and in need of repair,” Messa said. “We don’t have as many active members as in years past.” According to the Masonic Service Associa-
Photo by Betsy Denson After more than 50 years at their Watgonga Boulevard lodge, the Oak Forest masons are selling their building. They plan to rent space for their meetings from another lodge in the area.
Real Estate Roundup.
Revive’s Monica Danna confirmed the company recently closed on the sale of the former RJ’s Boot Shop at 34th Street and Ella Boulevard. As the building was structurally unsound, demolition started last week. Bootmaker Rocky Carroll, who crafted boots for U.S. Presidents including George H.W. Bush, George W. Bush and Ronald Reagan, along with Houston legends Denton Cooley and Red Duke, died in June 2017. Danna said Revive is still
deciding how to best utilize the property. Options include extending the medical building already planned for phase two of the Ella Oaks development or building a standalone structure. Arabic Immersion Magnet School leaving Heights Houston ISD recently announced that its Arabic Immersion Magnet School will relocate this summer to the former campus of Kinder High School for Performing and Visual Arts — a move the district says is designed to accommodate the school’s growing student population and transfor-
mation to a PK-8 campus. The new location, located at 4001 Stanford St., is seven miles south of the original AIMS campus on West 28th Street in the Heights. The new building has space for the school to expand, including areas for fine arts, physical education and a growing prekindergarten program. The Arabic Immersion Magnet School opened in August 2015 as the nation’s first public Arabic language immersion school. The school started with just 132 pre-kindergarten and kindergarten See Roundup P. 3B
Houston looks to past as it makes preparations for more a walkable future By Boulevard Realty Following nearly three years of committee work, the Walkable Places Committee chaired by Bill Baldwin, Planning Commissioner and broker/owner of Boulevard Realty, is poised to give Houston a roadmap toward restoring its walkable urban past. “Our current development patterns are really quite young, less than 40 to 50 years old,” Baldwin explains. “There was no need for minimum parking requirements or 25’ setbacks a century ago, and I would argue that there is really no need for them now.” Baldwin sees Houston’s current development code as a one-size-fits all experiment that has proven not to work. Since he was appointed Planning Commissioner in 2016 and ascended to chair the Walkable Places SubCommittee shortly thereafter, Baldwin has been on a quest to raise awareness about the advantages of focusing on what is known as the pedestrian realm. Baldwin points out, “19th Street west of Yale is our best example in the Heights of this type of development,” continuing, “It is the look and feel of America’s proverbial main streets.” While cities with millions of residents can’t easily pin down one or even a handful of main streets, the Walkable Places framework is based on what are called Major Activity Centers in the urban context as well as Transit Corridors—high-traffic thoroughfares connecting neighborhoods, job centers, and retail hubs via Metro—using pilot areas like Hogan Street in the Near Northside and Emancipation Avenue in Third Ward to craft the policy. The committee will vote once more on the recommendations to amend Chapters 26 and 42 of the City’s Code of Ordinances in June before sending them to City Council for a hopeful late summer vote. To Baldwin, the pedestrian realm isn’t just about wider sidewalks as a matter of com-
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Revive closes on RJ’s Boot Shop By Betsy Denson betsy@theleadernews.com
tion of North America, national membership in the organization has been decreasing as well. The first year for the association’s record-keeping was 1924, and there were 3,077,161 master masons. In 2017, there were 1,076,626. Between 2016 and 2017, Texas lost 1,075 members for a new total of 70,590 master masons. In Houston, there are about 20 masonic lodges, including the one in Oak Forest. An online history made available by Houston’s Gray Lodge #329 said membership in the masons was a bond for the male settlers who came to Texas in the early 1800s. The first recorded mason to enter Texas was Major Zebulon M. Pike, a member of Lodge No. 3, Philadelphia, who was here to scout the headwaters of the Arkansas and Red rivers as well as the Spanish settlements of the Rio Grande. To join the group today, masons say you don’t need to have a relative or friend who is a mason, but membership “must first be initiated by the petitioner’s request.” Requirements are to “simply be of good character and have a desire to improve yourself.”
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efits of Walkable Places to the neighborhoods surrounding those places. “I really don’t think there is any better place to live in Houston right now than the Heights close to Studewood, 11th, 19th, or White Oak,” asserts Baldwin. “There are so many places to eat, drink, shop, and socialize within blocks of amazing homes, and today’s urban dwellers crave that over exclusivity and seclusion.” Even the very top of the real estate market in the Heights supports Baldwin’s view. With his recent sale of a home on the 700 block of Columbia for over $2.3M, another sale on the 600 block of E. 12th for $2.1M, and two high-end sales at Bell Heights near 19th Street, it is hard to argue that Baldwin and his agents aren’t on to something with promoting this policy shift. “As with any change, there is lag and some pushback,” admits Baldwin. “But this is really about taking Houston back to its roots. We became a great city by seeing, interacting, and synergizing with one another out and about along our corridors and boulevards, not in parking lots or behind the steering wheel.” This article is part of the Leader Experts series, where companies pay for editorial space on topics important to the community. If you’d like to be a Leader Expert, contact us at (713) 686-8494.
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fort for those who use them, it’s about giving neighborhoods a stronger social fabric, giving businesses a greater opportunity to succeed, and keeping all who travel on and along Houston’s streets safer. “It’s a pretty simple concept,” Baldwin argues. “Move buildings closer to the street to give them greater visibility and slow down traffic. Create an enhanced area for seating and shopping shaded by those buildings. Eliminate curb cuts and driveways which affect traffic and put pedestrians and cyclists at risk on the shared roadway.” The 20 year real estate veteran opines that there are advantages to commercial developers as well since it increases usable square footage and turns building fronts into living billboards. Baldwin draws from his own experience at 927 Studewood, where he recently opened a new office taking up the entire second story, plus a ground floor community and coworking concept called YourSpace. “We had to have a certain vision and tenacity to achieve this, but the end result is worth it when I see families stopping by and taking photos with our restored Model T on their way to Mastrantos or stopping into YourSpace to chat with one of our agents.” While the commercial upside is great, Baldwin says he is more inspired by the ben-
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Contributed photo A Ford Model T is parked outside the new Boulevard Realty location at 927 Studewood St. in the Heights.
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