Updated
- A 63,000-square-foot mansion near Houston sat vacant for over 20 years.
- Owner Jim Youngblood tried to sell the vacant home more than 20 times, but every deal fell through.
- He finally decided to rent the space out to small businesses and groups — and it’s working.
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A colossal mansion in Manvel, Texas that sat vacant for more than 20 years is now thriving as a commercial building, including being part of a college campus.
The “Manvel Mansion,” about 23 miles south of Houston, was built in 2001 by physician Ulysses Watkins. He and his wife started building a 63,000-square-foot residence, but construction stopped about 80% when the couple decided the house was too big, according to the current owner of the property, Jim Youngblood.
It sat empty for years until Youngblood, a partner at Renters Warehouse, a local leasing and property management company, bought it for $525,000. At first, he tried to get rid of it repeatedly, for prices as high as $3.6 million.
In 2019, he decided to change his approach. If no one wanted to live there, maybe a small business or an organization would want to rent an affordable office.
He was right.
According to Rich Drake, CEO and partner of Renters Warehouse, all but 450 square feet of space have been occupied since then.
One of the biggest tenants to lease space is Alvin Community College (ACC), whose main campus is in Alvin, Texas, just 10 minutes from Manvel.
“As a community college, we want to make sure that we provide accessibility to as many potential students or to our community as possible,” Stacy Ebert, the vice president of strategic initiatives at ACC, told Business Insider. “So having a physical presence on the west side of our service area has been a goal of ours and part of our strategic initiatives.”
The college leased 14,500 square feet and is renovating to better accommodate students. To start, ACC will offer workforce-type training, like classes for healthcare and law enforcement, but will eventually offer general education courses.
Businesses are leaning into their unique location
According to Ebert, the school isn’t leaning much into its new campus being a mansion — they’re just calling it “ACC West.” Still, some of the other businesses in the building fully lean into the mansion’s aesthetic.
Cullen Fair, the owner of Space City Treasure, a store that buys and sells everything from jewelry and designer bags to sneakers and guns, said the mansion helps bring in business.
“In people’s mansions, they tend to have valuables, so I said, ‘This is a perfect fit,'” he told BI. “This is a big building. It has a unique location, a unique story, and I could leverage this building to drive in a certain clientele.”
The Manvel Mansion is the home to other businesses like a barbershop, an insurance firm, and a church.
Here’s a look at photos of the enormous and maligned building through the years and a glimpse into its long, intriguing history.
It sat empty until 2007, when Youngblood paid $525,000 for the property. He had been trying to resell it ever since.
Even after Youngblood bought it, the mansion sat vacant and unfinished.
It was vandalized multiple times.
“It’s been an eyesore and a money pit for the last 10 years,” Youngblood told ABC13 in 2019.
Taxes and insurance for the property cost Youngblood more than $100,000 a year — which is a lot, considering no money was coming in.
The annual cost of taxes and insurance was lower before Youngblood started renovating the mansion a few years ago.
Still, it’s added up over the years.
“Since we have owned it, we have spent more than $750,000 for taxes and insurance,” Youngblood said via email in 2013.
In 2017, Youngblood considered turning the vacant house into an assisted-living facility for veterans.
That plan ultimately fell through when neighbors opposed the plan.
“We got completely outvoted,” Youngblood said. “In order for me to obtain a light commercial permit, I had to take the veterans’ housing completely off the table.”
Youngblood still opted to convert the house’s zoning from residential to commercial, but he needed another use for the space.
Youngblood found a school that wanted to take up space in the building, but it went out of business before it could move in.
“I went and found a private school that wanted to occupy the building,” Youngblood said. “I started remodeling the building in accordance with their plan. And the school went out of business and went bankrupt before they were able to ever get in here.”
Youngblood started renovations to turn the house into an office space for multiple businesses and organizations. It’s still dubbed The Mansion.
The address of the property, formerly 2354 County Road 59, is now 11800 Magnolia Parkway, according to the real-estate listing advertising vacant space in the building.
The original home, which had 46 bedrooms, had a nine-car garage.
Youngblood swapped out the grassy yard for a 180-spot parking lot.
Inside, it’s barely recognizable as the unfinished mansion it used to be.
The original building had an elevator, but Youngblood spruced it up to suit an office.
In 2020, Youngblood found a church and a day care to take over 10,000 square feet each.
“The church is still hanging on,” Youngblood said. “And thank goodness the church was able to find a day care that would take up 10,000 square feet.”
Since the church and day care moved in, almost all of the office space is occupied.
Renters Warehouse, a leasing and property management company where Youngblood is a partner, also has office space in the building.
Vendors like Space City Treasure have around 500 square feet of space downstairs alongside other tenants, such as a hair loss treatment plant and an insurance company.
According to Youngblood, the building is divided into three areas: the church, the day care, and an area for businesses.
“The day care is completely separated from the businesses, so we won’t be able to hear a bunch of kids playing,” he said.
Most of the upstairs is now being leased by ACC.
ACC signed a five-year lease in late 2023, but classes have yet to start there as the school is still undergoing renovations.
“We are in the process right now of renovating that upstairs area to meet our needs,” Ebert said.
Along with Fair’s buy-and-sell business, there’s also an art gallery that he set up — it’s the largest art gallery in the county, he said.
“We’ve turned it into a gallery that was an initiative by Space City Treasure to drive more traffic in here,” Fair said. “We host local artists here, and we’re just doing whatever we can to make the best use of the building and bring goods and services to the community here.”
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