The Palm Center Business and Technology Center,Gonzales, J.R.
Palms Center in Pictures
" ''

Houston Chronicle The ''Houston Chronicle'' is the largest daily newspaper in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. it is the third-largest newspaper by Sunday circulation in the United States, behind only ''The New York Times'' and the ''Los Angeles Times''. ...

''. July 15, 2011. Retrieved on January 2, 2015. commonly known as Palm Center, is a municipally-owned services complex in southeast

Houston Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

Texas Texas ( , ; or ) is the most populous U.S. state, state in the South Central United States, South Central region of the United States. It borders Louisiana to the east, Arkansas to the northeast, Oklahoma to the north, New Mexico to the we ...

.Wallstin, Brian. "Incubating Problems." ''

Houston Press The ''Houston Press'' is an online newspaper published in Houston, Texas, United States. It is headquartered in the Midtown Houston, Midtown area. It was also a weekly print newspaper until November 2017. The publication is supported entirely ...

''. Thursday October 10, 1996. p
1
Retrieved on January 2, 2015. It is from

NRG Stadium NRG Stadium (previously known as Reliant Stadium) is a multi-purpose stadium in Houston, Texas, United States. Construction was completed in 2002, at a cost of $352 million and has a seating capacity of 72,220. It was the first NFL facility to h ...

and is in proximity to the Third Ward area.Scurfield, Nick.
Houston Texans YMCA opens in Third Ward
."

Houston Texans The Houston Texans are a professional American football team based in Houston. The Texans compete in the National Football League as a member of the American Football Conference (AFC) AFC South, South division. The team plays its home games at N ...

Official Website. January 6, 2011. Retrieved on January 3, 2015. As of 2011 the complex includes a former shopping center, which is one story tall, and the Park at Palm Center (PAPC).Maines, Don.
Civic leader helps revitalize Palm Center
" ''

''. August 16, 2011. Retrieved on January 2, 2015. The complex is at the intersection of Martin Luther King Boulevard and Griggs Road. Tenants include small businesses, government agencies, and nonprofits.Smith, Zachary, p. 6.

History

Shopping center

It opened as the Palms Center in September 1955. Keiji Asakura, an architect, described it as "the first of its kind that we know today as a shopping center, which means you drive up park and shop." Oscar Holcombe and Sterling T. Hogan, Sr. had the shopping center built to serve White Houstonians living in newly developed neighborhoods in Southeast Houston that were not in proximity to the shopping places in

Downtown Houston Downtown is the largest central business district in the city of Houston and the largest in the state of Texas, located near the geographic center of the metropolitan area at the confluence of Interstate 10 in Texas, Interstate 10, Interstate 45 ...

. Irving R. Klein & Associates had designed the center, Stanley Krenek and James Bishop served as the project architects, and Fisher Construction Company completed the structural framework; Holcombe and Hogan had selected Klein & Associates in 1954. The construction of Palm Center started after that of Gulfgate Mall, but Palm Center opened first. Hogan stated that market surveys at the time stated that the Griggs and South Park Boulevard area would have immense growth, so the developers chose this location.Smith, Zachary, p. 4. At the time of opening there were 41 stores and 2,000 parking spots. Albert Thomas, a member of the

U.S. House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the lower house, with the U.S. Senate being the upper house. Together, the House and Senate have the authority under Article One of th ...

, cut the ribbon to the facility. J.C. Penney,

Oshman's Oshman's Sporting Goods Inc. was a sporting goods retailer in the United States. Their headquarters were in East End, Houston, Texas.Walgreen’s Walgreens is an American pharmacy store chain. It is the second largest in the United States, behind CVS Pharmacy. As of March 2025, the company operated more than 8,700 stores in the U.S. Walgreens has been the subject of a number of lawsuits ...

, and Woolworth had stores at the time of opening. The library had opened around that time. Collins Tuttle & Co., a real estate company headquartered in New York, purchased Palm Center from Holcombe and Hogan. In 1969

Helmsley-Spear Harry Brakmann Helmsley (March 4, 1909 – January 4, 1997) was an American real estate billionaire whose company, Helmsley-Spear, became one of the country's biggest property holders, owning the Empire State Building and many of New York's most ...

acquired Palm Center.Smith, Zachary, p. 5. The white neighborhoods quickly became majority black due to

white flight The white flight, also known as white exodus, is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the Racism ...

in the 1970s. The neighborhoods' rapid changes harmed area retail businesses. Prior to the 1980s many tenants left Palms Center. J. R. Gonzales of the ''

'' wrote "the center resembled a ghost town by the early 1980s." The J.C. Penney, the final tenant, closed in 1984.

City-owned complex

In the mid-1980s the City of Houston acquired the complex. In 1987 the city began to redevelop Palm Center to attract small businesses as part of the Target of Opportunity program, funded by loans made by the federal government. The Palms Center Management Company and the Tillman Trotter Foundation cooperated with the city government in this endeavor. The small business center opened in 1989. The city government engaged in a memorandum of understanding with the Houston Business Development, Inc. (HBDi), an entity created by the city government several years prior, in 1992, so that it would handle the redevelopment and management of the complex. That year the

Department of Housing and Urban Development The United States Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) is one of the executive departments of the U.S. federal government. It administers federal housing and urban development laws. It is headed by the secretary of housing and u ...

(HUD) stated that the Houston redevelopment program had over-reported the number of jobs created and not accurately report spending; the HUD stated in a report that the city overpaid the private development team that renovated Palm Center $1 million and that there was $800,000 in other unnecessary expenses. The city paid $572,000 in punitive costs to the HUD. The center received its current name in 1993, and that year HBDi began managing Palm Center. The HUD approved the construction of a building for light manufacturing and the use of the community development funds for renovation of of space. There were 10 offices for start-up businesses and 25 other offices for prospective tenants available by July 1994. By 1996 the organization in the Palm Center complex was the nonprofit management organization in charge of it, HSBDC. By that year, the city had only attracted three additional tenants. Carroll Parrott Blue, a research professor at the

University of Houston The University of Houston (; ) is a Public university, public research university in Houston, Texas, United States. It was established in 1927 as Houston Junior College, a coeducational institution and one of multiple junior colleges formed in ...

, applied for a grant from the

National Endowment for the Arts The National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) is an independent agency of the United States federal government that offers support and funding for projects exhibiting artistic excellence. It was created in 1965 as an independent agency of the feder ...

(NEA) to improve the center; she did so on behalf of the university's Third Ward Arts Initiative. The NEA gave a $100,000 grant, scheduled to be spent at the new park at Palm Center. The university consulted 64-year-old Paulette Wagner, the president of the MacGregor Trails Civic Club in the Riverside Terrace community, for ideas on what to do. In the fall of 2012 a solar-powered kitchen was to be installed in the Palm Center Park. It was designed by UH architecture and graphics communications students. Since 2015,

METRORail METRORail is the light rail system in Houston, Texas (United States). In , the system had a ridership of , or about per weekday as of . METRORail ranks as the second most-traveled light rail system in the Southern United States and the List ...

light rail has served the Palm Center area with a station at the Palm Center Transit Center on the Purple Line.

Tenants

The Alice McKean Young Neighborhood Library of the

Houston Public Library Houston Public Library is the public library system serving Houston, Texas, United States. History Houston Lyceum and the Carnegie Library The Houston Public Library system traces its founding to the creation of the second Houston Lyceum in ...

is within Palm Center. The groundbreaking for the new Young Library building was held on Friday December 19, 2014. The

Harris Health System The Harris Health System, previously the Harris County Hospital District (HCHD), is a governmental entity with taxing authority that owns and operates three hospitals and numerous clinics throughout Harris County, Texas, United States, includ ...

Dental Center is in Palm Center. Harris County Constable Precinct 7 has its offices in Palm Center. A branch of the Harris County Tax Office is in the same complex. There is a U.S. post office and an office of Neighborhood Centers, Inc. within Palm Center.Smith, Zachary, p. 7. The Houston Business Development, Inc. (HBD) and the Business Information Center (BIC) are in Palm Center. Over 40 small businesses are in the complex. The

YMCA YMCA, sometimes regionally called the Y, is a worldwide youth organisation based in Geneva, Switzerland, with more than 64 million beneficiaries in 120 countries. It has nearly 90,000 staff, some 920,000 volunteers and 12,000 branches w ...

was built on of land,Houston Texans YMCA Opens January 3rd
"

Houston. Retrieved on January 3, 2014. on the site of a previous building that had been abandoned; this building had the original Palms Center sign. The YMCA announced plans to open the new Texans YMCA, which replaced the South Central YMCA, on March 25, 2008. Groundbreaking occurred in December 2008. The opening of the facility, the United States's first YMCA named after an athletic team, was scheduled for January 3, 2011. Previously

Kelsey-Seybold The Kelsey-Seybold Clinic is a large multi-specialty clinic system located in Greater Houston with its administrative headquarters in Shadow Creek Ranch, Pearland, Texas, Pearland. The clinic system is a major provider of healthcare for NASA and ...

operated the Palm Center clinic at 5290 Griggs. In April 2003 Kelsey-Seybold announced it was closing. The doctors moved to the Kelsey-Seybold main campus.Just So You Know
" City of Houston. Summer 2003. Retrieved on January 2, 2015.

References

* Smith, Zachary.
Palm Center: A Window into Southeast Houston

Archive
. ''

Houston History Houston ( ) is the List of cities in Texas by population, most populous city in the U.S. state of Texas and in the Southern United States. Located in Southeast Texas near Galveston Bay and the Gulf of Mexico, it is the county seat, seat of ...

''. Volume 11, No. 3. p. 2-7
See profile page

Notes

External links

Houston Texans YMCA
{{coord, 29.6960, -95.3346, type:landmark_region:US-TX, display=title Shopping malls in Houston Shopping malls established in 1955 1955 establishments in Texas