The Palms Center (now Palm Center business and technology center) was one of the first major shopping centers in the Houston area. Located near the corner of Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd and Griggs Rd. in South Houston this shopping center opened in 1955 and closed in the 1980's. The center was partially demolished and renovated in the 1990's to house offices and small businesses. More information about the center is available from the Bayou City history blog by clicking the above post title.
Here is a view of the majority of the center which still has roughly 75% of the original buildings intact.
According to comments from the Bayou City blog this was the former Lewis and Coker grocery store, but it looks like a JCPenney to me. Can anyone clarify what this anchor was?
The center is mostly now offices and public services such as a library and sheriff's station. In the first image you get a feel for how the center looked in the past when it was a retail center.
The center comes to an abrupt end where more shops were located such as Oshman's. The King's Best Market (former Montgomery Ward) is in the upper background of this image.
At the Southeast corner of MLK and Griggs, Palms Center is located behind this new Texans Y.M.C.A.
I believe the former JC Penney was torn down, but I'm not absolutely sure about that.
ReplyDeleteThese are some good photos of a lesser known former major shopping center in Houston. It looks like the center was pretty busy when you were there. I think turning a former shopping center into a community center of sorts seems to have worked out very well here.
The old Lewis & Coker Grocery store was on MLK @ Van Fleet there was a K-Mart there as well
ReplyDeleteThanks for the extra information.
DeleteOn van fleet next to the old kmart is south park babtist church. Across the street was a private swimming pool called Edgewood swim club I went to as a kid. On down to the corner was a bank. Turn right on south park and going toward palm center was guarantee boot and western wear. On down was palm center on the corner at Griggs. Across the street was Montgomery ward. Miss that area I grew up in 1956 to 1971.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing your story about this area. This was a really nice area back in the day. Things are looking up with lots of new developments nearby.
Delete