Tax Credit Program Highlight: Henry Brashear Building

History

Houston’s Main Street/Market Square Historic District reflects the city’s industrial and commercial growth from the Reconstruction period (1870s) through the real estate boom of the early-twentieth century. The Henry Brashear building, built in 1882 by Eugene T. Heiner, underscores a period of architectural development and innovation in the late nineteenth-century, as the city’s commercial interests began to boom and architects flooded the region. The Brashear is one of Houston’s best examples of a Victorian commercial building with its ornate and heavily plastered façade. The building housed a variety of tenants over the years, from a druggist, a club, jewelers, to a children’s clothing store. As of June 24, 2009, the Henry Brashear building was designated as a City of Houston Protected Landmark, ensuring its preservation for years to come.

Rehabilitation Project

This rehabilitation project brought the Henry Brashear Building of Houston’s Main Street Historic District back up to code and in a white-box condition for future tenant finish out and reuse. The project notably involved repainting the storefront, masonry cleaning, repair of the top metal cornice line, reroofing, in-kind replacement of select areas of deteriorated window rails, stiles, and sills, preservation of the historic stair, removal of non-historic doors and concrete floors, removal of a non-historic stairwell, installation of new floor and ceiling joists in several areas, updating of mechanical, electrical and plumbing systems, removal and replacement of damaged historic and non-historic finishes, which included installation of new flooring, gypsum board walls, and dropped acoustical tile ceilings.