HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) — On May 16, Jamey Moore watched a storm roll into Houston from his backdoor window.
“It got dark really quickly, and then all of a sudden, the wind started,” Moore said. “It was like a freight train just (whoosh) for a good, probably like 20 minutes.”
Moore saw the vacant, dilapidated building behind his home begin to vibrate before its bricks toppled into his and his three neighbors’ yards.
“Everything dramatic like that feels like slow motion, but in reality, it probably was, like, five seconds. It kind of fell like dominoes. The top bricks came down first, and then it kind of just (fell) almost like a wave,” he said.
The owner of the vacant building at 1700 North Main Street, just north of downtown Houston, stated he was uninsured when the wall collapsed. He told 13 Investigates he would pay out-of-pocket to clean up the damage.
As of Wednesday afternoon, one homeowner told 13 Investigates that the bricks had not yet been picked up from their yards.
The city began demolishing the building last week after 13 Investigates looked into the property’s history of complaints, dating back to 2010.
Houston Public Works said it first responded to complaints in 2010 about the property being abandoned and insecure after the roof collapsed. The property owner then secured the building from unauthorized entry.
In 2021, following another complaint, the city ordered the property owner to comply with building codes or secure demolition permits. This complaint was closed after a follow-up inspection a month later because the landscaping was maintained and the property was secured from unauthorized use.
However, issues persisted, and a hearing was held on November 8, 2023. During the hearing, an officer deemed the building to have a “floor or a roof of insufficient strength to be reasonably safe” and noted that part of the building was “not properly attached so that the part may fall on or otherwise injure occupants of the building or members of the public.” The property owner was given 90 days to bring the building up to code or face demolition.
Houston Public Works informed that after the hearing, the property owner obtained a dangerous building repair permit, but it expired without any action. Despite the owner securing the building from unauthorized use, it remained non-compliant when the May storm hit, as the collapsed roof had not been fixed, making it unsafe to occupy.
Houston Public Works said it lacks the resources to revisit properties and ensure compliance every time a permit expires, typically relying on complaints to determine follow-ups.
Houston City Council Member Mario Castillo, who used to live near the vacant building, recalled the roof collapsing when he moved to the neighborhood in July 2019.
“You see animals coming in and out of here all the time, and sometimes the gates weren’t always secure on the window, so it was just not in really good shape at all whatsoever. It was definitely a hazard,” Castillo said.
Castillo, now a city leader, has heard numerous complaints from residents about dangerous vacant commercial buildings across his district, but said the process to address these concerns is convoluted.
“When you have three city departments involved – (Department of) Neighborhoods, Public Works, and Legal – it creates opportunities for things like this to slip through the cracks for the ball to be dropped,” Castillo said. “Some department is doing this, some department is doing that. They don’t talk to each other often about it, and you see exactly what happens.”
Following the May storm, affected residents complained to the city and reached out to Castillo and 13 Investigates.
“How long does something like this have to sit here?” Moore asked. “To be honest, if this was any other more affluent part of the city, I feel like it would’ve been gone a long time ago.”
After 13 Investigates inquired about the property, the “Department of Neighborhoods conferred with the hearing officer to see if the building qualified for emergency demolition, which resulted in an emergency order.” Since the property owner did not remediate the building before it became eligible for emergency abatement following two separate hearing orders, the Department of Neighborhoods moved forward with the emergency demolition using taxpayer funds.
“The Department of Neighborhoods will issue a lien on the property for the total costs associated with the demolition,” according to a city statement.
