Historic Downtown San Angelo Building Gets Demolished

SAN ANGELO, TX - The corner of Beauregard and Koenigheim in downtown San Angelo gets a facelift today as crews begin to demolish the old, but historic apartment building located next to the old Clinic Hospital.

Starting on Oct. 28, the sidewalk on the corner of Beauregard and Koenigheim will be closed to the public as demolition crews tear down the old apartments. Larry Jolly, the real estate broker for the property, said the old building was once used to house nurses who worked next door.

The building, which has been there since 1910, has been abandoned for quite some time, and in 2019 the structure was condemned by the City of San Angelo’s Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals. 

The building was located next to the former Community Hospital and housed nurses who worked at in that old hospital building that today is known as the Butterfield Building. The old downtown hospital was founded by a physician, Dr. H.P Rush, who moved here from De Leon in 1920. His clinic attracted others and eventually an eight-bed hospital was established at 224 W. Beauregard Ave. In 1970, the hospital was sold to a non-profit and renamed Clinic Hospital. By 1977, the hospital moved into its current location at 3501 Knickerbocker Rd. and was renamed Angelo Community Hospital. Angelo Community was sold to a for-profit corporation in the 1990s to be renamed San Angelo Community Medical Center. This month Shannon Health purchased the assets of SACMC and the former SACMC is now known as Shannon South.

The history of hospitals is come a long way since nurses lived in the apartments in this old building.

The building is currently owned by James and Debbie Chiu of Midland but was never occupied. The building further deteriorated over the years of vacancy. In a city council meeting in 2019, Construction Board of Adjustments and Appeals board member Ross Coleman told the City Council exactly what they were dealing with. 

"Here you can see the stairwell is failing, and it's not passable, so we couldn't go up to the second floor... There are multiple things going on... There are holes in the ceilings, in the floors, you can't walk through the structure, and you can see straight through to the outside through the roof in some places," said Coleman. "We've done this several times over the years and we're back to bringing the structure to your attention again...They've (The property owners) made several attempts, but right now, we have open windows over there and animals going in and out."

Jolley said what finally prompted the demolition, other than the court order the City of San Angelo procured, was that the roof completely caved in. Over the years, Jolley said, potential buyers had shown interest in restoring it, but nothing ever happened. A lack of parking, the poor condition of the old building, and asbestos removal were barriers, he said.

Downtown San Angelo Inc. Director Del Velasquez said the demolition of the building was inevitable. The building had fallen into a state of so much disrepair that it was past the point of no return, he said.