Demolition mission complete

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Demolition mission complete

Wed, 02/03/2021 - 18:35
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Former Rooms 4 Rent torn down; city to use land for five years

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At the end of last week, the time finally came for the demolition of the building formerly known as the Rooms 4 Rent Motel on Highway 36 in Sealy and the lot has since been turned into an empty plot of land.

The property was purchased by local businessman John Wilson in November for $508,000 and the Sealy Economic Development Corporation contributed up to $200,000 for asbestos treatment. City staff provided the in-kind demolition service and in return, Wilson will allow the city to use the lot for the next five years.

“We’ll use it for a farmers’ market for five years and then I’m going to hold on the property until somebody comes along and offers me a fair market price for the property and then I might be interested in selling,” Wilson said in a Jan. 30 phone interview.

Wilson, originally from Northwest Houston and a Sealy resident for around 25 years, owns other properties in town including the area near Donut Palace where food trucks have set up shop. He said he’s scouted out other properties but is committed to improving Sealy.

“I’m always looking for properties, particularly properties that will make Sealy look better,” Wilson said. “It looks great, I was tired of looking at this eyesore that was causing so many problems in Sealy for so many years. … I’m just happy to see this building is gone and we don’t have to face those issues again.”

The building was originally constructed in 1965 and served as a nursing home before transitioning to affordable housing for people at or near homelessness. Recently, however, deemed by the city as a “substandard, blighted, and nuisance structure,” the motel became the location of many police calls and crime reports.

From where they started the process to now looking out onto an empty lot, Wilson was pleased with the progress.

“(Things have) been going very smoothly and I went by there today (Jan. 30), and I saw they had scraped everything clean off the property so it looks like they got all of the building taken away, which is such a great thing,” he said.