River Oaks Shopping Center
[1] Hugh Potter, who was involved in the River Oaks Corporation and took control of it in the 1930s, had created the concept of the shopping center.
[3] Potter commissioned architects Edward Arrantz and Oliver C. Winston to create the plans for the study.
[2] Anna Mod, author of Building Modern Houston, wrote "The center was the subject of numerous articles" when it opened.
[1] In 2008 area residents began complaining upon learning about a plan to install an open-air wine bar/patio for private parties.
In a 38-year period ending in 2012, Weingarten spent over $115 million in renovations to the River Oaks Shopping Center.
[1] The front page of the July 22, 2006 Houston Chronicle reported there were plans to demolish parts of the River Oaks Shopping Center and to build redevelopment, including a Barnes & Noble, on the site of one portion,[7] a building on the northeast corner of Shepherd Drive and West Gray, for redevelopment.
[9] Weingarten announced that a $15 million, about 60,000-square-foot (5,600 m2) complex of two- and three-story buildings, anchored by a two-story Barnes & Noble, would replace the former portion.
[8] The Greater Houston Preservation Alliance (GPHA) made a petition that got over 25,000, asking for Barnes & Noble to not lease space in the project.
[10] The GPHA stated that the Houston Archaeological and Historical Commission included the River Oaks Shopping Center portion, the Alabama Theatre, and the River Oaks Theater in its list of fifty most important historic buildings in Houston.
The THC ruled it to be eligible to be on the National Historic Register, along with the Alabama and River Oaks Theatres.
[9] That year, the City of Houston Planning Commission recommended that the shopping center be designated as a historic landmark.
[8] In 2007 Jennifer Friedburg of the Houston Chronicle wrote that pro-preservationists "will certainly continue to try to change the rules to protect other buildings that might be demolished in the future" and that "While this act seals the center’s fate, it will do little to end the debate about what type of city Houston is, what it values and what it will look like in the future.
"[12] In 2018 Weingarten announced plans to demolish the section with the former Laff Stop Comedy club so a thirty-story residential tower could be built in its place.
[13] The center is at the intersection of West Gray Avenue and South Shepherd Drive in Neartown, adjacent to the eastern boundary of River Oaks.
Anna Mod wrote that the entrances to the shops each had "a solid base, large windows, and a minimally detailed cornice.
"[4] Longstreth wrote that the shape and the "abstract, minimalist vocabulary" were "[t]wo of the most distinctive features" in Winston's architectural plans, and that this arrangement "imparted a sense of fluidity that stood in distinct contrast to even the least historicizing Washington centers then realized, where form and composition engendered a feeling of static reserve.
[18] Previously the shopping center had two Starbucks locations, with one being referred to by a joke that Lewis Black made in 2002.
In 2006 Mimi Swartz of National Geographic wrote that La Griglia is "the River Oaks lunch spot of choice.
