DOWNTOWN BRENHAM COULD LOSE HISTORIC BUILDING

  

Downtown Brenham is in danger of losing an historic building to demolition.

Sitting at the east end of Commerce Street, the old St. Anthony Laundry Building was built around 1880.  It is on one of the oldest buildings remaining in downtown Brenham, and an application has been made for listing in the National Register of Historic Places.  After years of being open to the weather through holes where windows used to be, the roof gave way.  Now the owners of the two-story building, Kent Brownell and Mary Corona, are seeking bids to have it torn down.

Erik Smith, Manager of Development Services for the City of Brenham, says he has been in contact with the owners about how to make the Laundry Building safe.  The City has offered a structural engineer’s report by Gessner Engineering which describes what needs to be done to secure and weatherproof the building.  But it appears Brownell and Corona are moving forward with plans for its demolition.

While the application with the National Register gives the historic name as the Brenham Pulp Factory, most people remember it as the Laundry Building.  In the 1900’s, it served as the laundry for the historic St. Anthony Hotel, which stood at the corner of Main and Market Streets.  Later it was operated as Fabric Care Service, owned by the Sanders family until 2005.

In July of 2014 the Brenham City Council authorized the City Attorney to pursue all available legal remedies against the owners, to require them to bring the building up to code.  Although the exterior of the building had been painted, it remained vulnerable to the weather with missing windows and doors, and openings in the roof.  Now, two years later, the Laundry Building has been designated an “unsafe structure” and is scheduled to be discussed by Brenham’s Building Standards Commission on September 7th.

Doug Price, Executive Director of the Brenham Heritage Museum, is still hopeful that something can be done to save the historic building from destruction.  Price says the Laundry Building is a visible historic structure that completes the historic perspective of Commerce Street.  Without it, he says, the view is ruined and the historic quality of a large part of downtown is spoiled.

Other Texas cities have passed historic preservation ordinances which prevent owners from tearing down historic buildings.  The City of Brenham, however, has not passed such an ordinance.