Covering a downtown area may be a little off topic, but there are several lost retail stories from every downtown area in the United States. Port Arthur Texas is a city of around 50,000 people that has seen better days. The downtown area was flourishing in the 1950's through the 1960's and dropped off significantly leaving the area mostly abandoned and blighted. Downtown had several restaurants, offices, and retail stores that lined Proctor and the surrounding streets. Most of the retail of Port Arthur is located on Gulfway or towards Nederland with
the Central Mall anchoring the area retail. What happened to the businesses here in Port Arthur is not documented well on the internet, but the nearby industries seems to be one of the causes. I would like to see some of these projects to redevelop downtown take off and bring this area back to life.
We start our tour of downtown Port Arthur at the tallest building that still stands; the Sabine Hotel.
There was also a taller downtown hotel that was demolished in the 1980's named the goodhue hotel. The Sabine Hotel is slated for redevelopment, but it will take a really committed developer to pull this off. Many windows are broken and the hotel has been exposed to the elements for many years and several hurricanes. If this building can be fixed up; it will make downtown much more attractive.
Also of note six downtown buildings that are pictured here have been slated for demolition.
Take a good look inside some of the windows; you can see some fans and light fixtures.
The vacant World Trade Building. I really like the style of this building and it looks to be one of the most well preserved of the vacant structures in downtown.
You can buy this building as of 9/1/2011 for a mere $275,000 or less.
Here are the rest of the downtown buildings; how many of these were retail shops and markets? Looking at a historic photo from the 1960's shows that the downtown area was much fuller.
This building is an example of what should be done downtown; it is one of the few buildings that are occupied and keeps the style intact.
This building has lots of damage and some of the window frames have caved in.
This was once a Kress department store and you can see the logo in the middle of the building near the top. Kress is a department store chain that had a store in downtown New Orleans also. Not much has been documented from Kress since it was a smaller retail chain that did not last.
No news is good news? Not in Port Arthur.
Some of the buildings have labelscars from murals.
Even several of the houses standing around downtown have been neglected.
More of the commercial buildings.
This view of Proctor street through the heart of downtown shows the lack of people on this weekday afternoon.
The roof has caved in on this building.
As Is just as the sign says.
Not all in Port Arthur is looking grim; these long vacant buildings have been purchased by developers looking to redevelop the properties. The Kress building has a new building in the empty lot on the rendering.
The Sabine Hotel may become apartments.
This former grocery store is located further away from downtown on Gulfway Drive. Gulfway Drive has several businesses, but the majority of the area retail is located near the mall.
This temple is located almost across the street from the creepy former Texaco pictured below.
This creepy old school Texaco is North of downtown on Proctor St.
