Seabrook Has Plan to Emerge from Kemah’s Shadow

The 25-acre strip of land between Galveston Bay and Clear Lake called “The Point” could be an alternative to Kemah’s bright boardwalk across the bay.

Seabrook officials hope the area, which now has only seven businesses on 33 parcels of land, will soon attract new development.  The area, which has several seafood stores and a few restaurants,  was underwater after Hurricane Ike hit in 2008. A Pappadeaux seafood restaurant on the property was never rebuilt.

With help from the city government and a federal grant, Seabrook leaders are at work on a new vision for siphoning a portion of the millions of tourists who visit Kemah each year to create a quaint, rustic entertainment alternative to the bustling boardwalk.

Crossing the Texas 146 bridge toward the shimmering Kemah Boardwalk, it’s easy to miss this 25-acre strip of underdeveloped waterfront, with its pockmarked, flood-prone roads and storm-ravaged buildings.

The main thoroughfare has an alluring name, Waterfront Drive, but drivers had best keep their eyes on the makeshift dirt path as it weaves through and around heavy construction and past structures destroyed by Hurricane Ike five years ago.

 

The losses included a Pappadeaux seafood restaurant that was never rebuilt. Today, just seven businesses occupy the 33 parcels of land.

Even before the storm, though, this area known as “the Point,” opposite thriving Kemah at the waterway where Clear Lake yields to Galveston Bay, was slow to attract development. It remains, as one surviving business owner calls it, “a diamond in the rough.”

But the Point could soon begin to achieve its promise.

With help from the city and a federal grant, Seabrook leaders are at work on a new vision for creating a quaint, rustic entertainment alternative to the bustling boardwalk and siphoning a portion of the millions of tourists who visit Kemah each year.

Waterfront Drive work

Economic development director Paul Chavez said businesses may see the potential there after reconstruction of Waterfront Drive is completed by year’s end. He noted already hopeful signs in a thriving fish market and a few new restaurants popping up.

Hurricane Ike in 2008 completely submerged the area, but Chavez said it also made it possible for the city to attract government funding to rebuild.

“It was a terrible thing because it devastated the area,” he said, “but it provided an opportunity for redevelopment.”

In 2009, Seabrook received an $8.4 million federal grant to improve and rebuild the area, particularly Waterfront Drive. Because the road is below sea level, most rainstorms cause flooding and the street looks like a lake, blocking visitors from the businesses.

Construction crews are working to elevate Waterfront Drive by 4 to 5 feet. The city will kick in by adding lights to the road, landscaping and parking, which should make the area safer and more appealing. The roadwork began in June after the city finished upgrading drainage and other infrastructure in the area.

Debbie Duong of Rose’s Seafood said her family store was destroyed by Ike, but they opened a new, higher store the next year on their biggest holiday, Good Friday. Each Friday before Easter, people crowd the fish markets at the Point, backing up traffic on Texas 146.

Ike Opened Many Eyes

The seafood seller, which attracts buyers from restaurants in Houston and Dallas, was one of the first stores to open in the area in the 1980s.

“Hurricane Ike really opened the city’s eyes that something needed to be done with this area,” Duong said. “It’s not perfect. The roads surrounding this area flood easily. Elevating it will make it more secure and help business.”

The Pappadeaux location was another big draw before Ike. That plot of land now has work crews scurrying past the still-standing restaurant sign.

Business owners at the Point and city leaders say they are hopeful it will return, but a representative of the Pappas chain did not respond to inquiries.

Other concerns for businesses planning to develop in the area are new flood maps and new insurance requirements calling for new structures on Waterfront Drive to be elevated at least between 19 and 22 feet above sea level.

Currently, the structures must be at least 14 to 16 feet above sea level. This change will be effective in the next 12 to 18 months, the city of Seabrook says.

Many Have High Hopes

The Point will be subject to the Biggert-Waters Flood Insurance Reform Act of 2012, a federal law that will increase flood insurance rates for hundreds of thousands of coastal home and business owners in Texas and across the nation when a major provision kicks in this October. The act will dictate both construction codes and insurance rates.

Still, many business owners have big hopes for the area. That includes Delaina Hanssen, owner of the Beacon Hill Bed and Breakfast.

The business, which Hanssen has owned for 17 years, fronts on an empty plot of land where shrimp boats once anchored and has a view of the boat parades down the bay.

Recently, she stood on the porch, with its view of the Kemah Boardwalk, and pointed to a fence she has never repaired.

Hanssen said she is not sure why the area has been slow to come back.

Her bed and breakfast, built 25 feet above sea level on an artificial hill, was the only property that did not flood during Ike. She said her business was booming after the storm, with displaced residents or contractors working in the Galveston area on rebuilding.

The two yellow, weathered houses on her property are available for short or long-term rent, but she has bigger ideas for her land. She wants to convert her property into a hotel, bar or restaurant.

“We are looking to offer something else and we don’t know what it is yet,” Hanssen said of development on the Point. “It’s like a diamond in the rough.”

Source