As Pride Month starts, demolition for Austin LGBTQ bars crawls closer on Fourth Street

Members of Austin's LGBTQ community rang in Pride Month with choked-back tears and prolonged uncertainty at City Hall.

The Historic Landmark Commission on Wednesday night indefinitely postponed a decision about the historic status of the sites housing three queer-centric nightclubs in the Warehouse District. A proposed demolition project at West Fourth and Colorado streets would displace those bars to make room for a mixed-use tower to be developed by Houston-based Hanover Co. 

But the vote still appeared a likely harbinger of drastic changes over the coming years to the city's longtime center of LGBTQ life. 

The parcels in question are home to Coconut Club, Neon Grotto and Oilcan Harry’s, which is the oldest operating LGBTQ bar in town. The properties date back almost a century and have had varied uses, from auto garages to restaurants to previous queer nightclubs.

More:This is America: The duality of Pride Month

Hanover plans to reconstruct the ground-level façade underneath the proposed residential tower. Owners of all three bars, none of whom own their buildings, told the American-Statesman in April that they aren't fighting demolition.

The Historic Landmark Commission could have recommended historic zoning or released the demolition permit. In making a unanimous decision not to decide for now, the commissioners banked on what some indicated could be a best-case scenario in a rapidly changing Austin. 

The postponement leaves room for the case to come back to the commission at a later date, said Jorge Ortega, a spokesman for the city's Housing and Planning Department. Commission Vice Chair Ben Heimsath, in moving to postpone, set out stipulations for the developers' ongoing plans, including that they hew to their stated architectural intentions. Any deviations further into the development process could then be considered by the commission.

Chair Terri Myers characterized the move as keeping developers' "feet to the fire."

Continuing coverage:Demolition plans could displace about half of Austin's LGBTQ bars. Here's what to know.

Those developers on Wednesday pledged again to protect the character of the district. Oilcan Harry’s, which opened in 1990, would move back into the ground floor of the new tower with subsidized rent and a 25-year lease, said David Ott of Hanover Co. The company would provide financial support for the bar to open a temporary location during its displacement, he said.

Ott mentioned recent conversations with the Coconut Club and Neon Grotto owners about potentially moving back into a street-level space adjacent to Oilcan Harry's, a shift from previously disclosed plans. He also proposed that the corner of the block could host a local, LGBTQ-owned restaurant.

The developers' current proposal is the "best bet and hope for the community to survive here long-term," Ott said. The Downtown Austin Neighborhood Association and Austin LGBT Chamber of Commerce sent letters to the commission last month opposing historic zoning, with presidents of both organizations expressing support for the project. 

A handful of demolition opponents weren't buying it Wednesday. They spoke about the loss of Austin's soul, the struggles of marginalized communities and the importance of businesses that bring color to the streets.

Titus Parkes, a local creative director, pointed to past public support for preservation of the buildings in the Warehouse District. He painted a picture of the courage it took LGBTQ people to stake out space in them over the decades.

“This is our home. These are our buildings,” he said, his voice catching. 

“There is no other central location of gay life here,” said Garry Brown, who urged historic designation. 

“We are still fighting an ancestral fight to stay visible,” said Miriam Conner, a board member of Preservation Austin, adding that "the literal place of pride is being threatened" during Pride Month.

Preservation Austin President Linda Jackson sent a letter to the commission on Tuesday that opposed demolition.

"To deny the very significant community and cultural associations of these buildings while promising to protect a single bar is to misunderstand the plight of the LGBTQIA community to have its history recognized," the letter read. It is "clear that queer spaces in Austin are greatly imperiled," Jackson wrote.

Continuing coverage:Demolition moves ahead for Austin LGBTQ bar the Iron Bear

The commissioners on Wednesday bemoaned a lack of sufficient preservation tools in the face of what Heimsath called an "economic tsunami" that's now come for a marginalized community's safe haven. A proposal to tear down the Iron Bear, another gay bar in the Warehouse District, moved forward last month. (Two other LGBTQ bars in the district, Rain and Highland Lounge, are not part of the West Fourth Street development project.)

Even if the Historic Landmark Commission recommended historic zoning, Myers and Commissioner Kevin Koch both indicated that the gesture was unlikely to survive at the City Council. If a vote failed there, it could open the door to less desirable outcomes in the district, Koch predicted. Heimsath called the Hanover proposal the "safest harbor" for preservation of the area's character.

“Until the city develops the will to support historic preservation and we have some leadership in that direction, we’re going to be here faced with the same things," Myers said.

“I have to ask myself how I’m going to sleep at night,” Koch said.

He later added about the indefinite postponement: "It’s damage control. It’s mitigation."