Is Downtown’s Vince Young Steakhouse Building Historic, or Just Really Old?
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An application to demolish the 109-year-old former warehouse building currently occupied by the Vince Young Steakhouse in the Vegas-lite heart of downtown’s Convention Center District has run afoul of the city’s Historic Landmark Commission, and the situation presents a philosophical quandry — if a building survives for a century, how do you distinguish its long presence in history from actual historic merit?
The plan to demolish the steakhouse/warehouse at 301 San Jacinto Boulevard, along with a concurrent application to remove the 1938 warehouse currently home to event venue the Sunset Room next door at 310 East Third Street, would clear the half-block north of East Third Street between San Jacinto and Trinity Streets — almost certainly the vision of unknown tower developers hoping to raise something much taller here. The Sunset Room demolition passed the HLC without controversy, as the building has been modified too extensively over the years to retain sufficient historic character — but commissioners believe the steakhouse still has merit, and moved to initiate the landmark designation process for the site, to continue at its meeting later this month.