Washington-Coles neighbors fight to preserve building that once was a "hot spot" (2024)

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — For decades this building at 1214 to 1220 N. Staples St. stood tall. Many people knew it as Ebony Recreation Spot, Skylark Club or the Fabulous Lounge.

It's set to be torn down.

One look at the building and there's no hiding it's in a dangerous state.

Priscilla Tryon Cambric bought the building through a Nueces County Tax Sale in 2003. It had been vacant for years. Cambric bought several properties back then as a real estate investment when talks of a new Harbor Bridge started happening.

Long before that, it was the place to be.

“My favorite memories was upstairs, where they had the dance hall," Cambric said. "Where we had like James Brown, Aretha Franklin, B.B. King, all that. I was young, but that was the hot spot here.”

The dance hall stood in an area surrounded by popular African-American owned businesses, Cambric said.

It wasn’t the music, but a storm in 2022 that brought the roof down. The City of Corpus Christi took notice and code enforcement started issuing violations in July of that year.

"Other than that, this building was in tip-top shape," Cambric said. "When the roof went and you had transients coming in and this kind of stuff. Then the city was riding me for that and I'd have people come over and board that up. Then they'll say you're missing a brick, you're missing a that, so I had to comply with that."

Code enforcement issued a couple of citations for non-compliance in 2022.

There’s no way around it, the building is in an unsafe condition. The complaints came in front of the Building Standards Board, but the conversation was put off for months in 2023. On Sept. 28 2023, the building standards boards ordered the demolition of the structure.

Before that order, Cambric and her attorney Matt Manning had been working to show the historical significance of this place.

"It's the last standing building of commerce that was here that African-Americans own," Lamont Taylor said, a Washington-Coles near life-long resident.

In documents issued on July 27, 2023, The Texas Historical Commission and Texas Dance Hall Preservation agreed the building could qualify to be added to the National Register of Historic Places, if it is restored.

“This is such an important cultural building here in this community and we know that the city, like all governmental entities, has a vested interest making sure that we preserve the history of the community,” Manning said.

However, it’s not just entertainment history they want preserved. Taylor said it goes back to more demolition than investment in the North neighborhood, a predominantly African-American neighborhood.

"I have seen no investment. I've seen the devastation, i.e. two years ago they tore down Washington School. With this bridge, allowing this bridge to be here, they're allowing the Port (of Corpus Christi) to go through and erase houses," Taylor said.

The goal is to preserve the history of the neighborhood with almost all commercial buildings erased from that neighborhood.

“This is history," Taylor said. "This is the last part of history you will not know if you come here to Corpus Christi whether or not any Blacks lived in Corpus Christi."

“If we get rid of this building, we have no history," Cambric said. "Because all the Blacks and Hispanics that lived here on this side of town are disseminated. And, I want something my people, other people, can come back over to see what we had over here and what we were doing.”

Cambric appealed that demolition order September. She will now have her chance to plead her case to City Council on Tuesday. The final decision now rests with the Council.

If the demolition order is overturned, Cambric and her team are already working on a plan on how this building can be restored. The Texas Dance Hall Preservation has recently assisted three dance halls across Texas in finding funding resources to restore those buildings. They can do the same for Cambric's building.

If restored, Cambric can see it as a museum of the Washington-Coles Neighborhood. It could possibly be an event center for that neighborhood that always has to go across town for anything.

The preservation of this neighborhood has been studied by students at the University of Austin. This past fall, the students created a Legacy Project that lays out a preservation plan for the Washington-Coles Neighborhood.

The demolition discussion is listed as the first item on Tuesday's agenda.

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