The look of the 1200 block of Texas Avenue is changing as SporTran City puts on her new colors. The new multimodal facility at 1253 Texas Avenue, most recently home to Sun Furniture, has been painted and the new (old) sign has been installed. According to SporTran’s Facebook post, phase one of the building renovation is wrapping up, and phase two will begin soon.
SporTran City, 1253 Texas Avenue
The facility will include a transit resource center and food court to serve employees and the general public, as well as meeting spaces and a wellness center for SporTran employees.
The work on the building is a full rehab of a space that has been many things over the years. The space here and the building at 1309 Texas Avenue just across Murphy Street were located perfectly to help expand the role of the SporTran Murphy Street Transit hub.
Take a close look at the new sign. What do you see? You should see the OLD sign!
Side by side
The new Sportran City sign is the original Sun Furniture City sign, reskinned and thoroughly rehabbed, hopefully here for another 50 years. Sun Furniture first moved to Texas Avenue in 1966, but by then, the building was well into it long and interesting history.
Bernstein Brothers-1902
The first mention of it that we find was in 1900 as the Bernstein Brothers, a purveyor of drugs, groceries, liquor, crockery, grain and seed–a kind of ‘one-stop’ shop of the era. In between the years of Bernstein and Sun Furniture, the building was the Green Walls Drug Company (1936), and sported a pretty amazing array of painted advertising signage along its west (Murphy Street) wall.
Green Walls Drug Co.
Along the way, the building was also home to other wholesale drug companies and at least one other furniture store.
An early bicycle messenger- Green Walls Drug Co.
SporTran’s plans bring much-needed amenities to the area that will benefit both transit riders and the general public, and the rehab of three historic buildings to give them a new use and a new future.
Interested in leasing a space in SporTran City?
See some background on the project here.
See a bit more history on the building here.
