National Register Listing

Merchants and Manufacturers Building

a.k.a. M & M Building

1 Main St., Houston, TX

The Merchants and Manufacturers Building for a half-century has expressed the enterprising spirit that culminated in the multi-faceted development of Houston. The uniquely designed structure, a merchandise mart situated at the hub of three conveyances of surface transportation, was conceived in the twilight of the post-World War One boom and attracted many of the most prominent construction people in the area. Undertaken in 1928, it featured numerous innovative facilities placed within the largest edifice in the city and located offices and displays in close proximity. Its highest reaches bore striking examples of Art Deco detail. Although roundly acclaimed as the most ambitious and functional building of the era, its completion in 1930 coincided with the brunt of the Great Depression. The M&M Building, accordingly, fell into bankruptcy four years later. Oilmen H. H. and C. H. Coffield attempted to revive the merchandising plan after World War Two, but the dreams succumbed to suburbanization which drew business from the downtown area. Nevertheless, throughout the period it housed a diversity of shops and offices which reflected the evolving economic influences of Houston.

The Merchants and Manufacturers Building represented in motivation and design Houston's economic outreach of the 1920s, a decade which saw the Bayou City rank seventh in the nation in the value of building permits issued, an amount far in excess of Dallas, Kansas City, and New Orleans. Some of the construction trade's most prominent figures combined to produce an edifice so innovatively striking as to draw the attention of local news coverage on its opening, on April 18, 1930. Rex D. Frazier, promoter of the Manchester Terminal Corporation on the Houston Ship Channel, the world's largest cotton compress and warehouse, conceived the idea in collaboration with J. R. Cheek, the distinguished Houston land developer. They envisioned a structure that would utilize the changing methods in sales and distribution. Don Hall, the builder of more than a hundred structures in the previous nine years, constructed the building after an eighteen-month study by the prestigious Austin-based architectural firm of Giesecke and Harris. Officers of the building included E. A. Peden, president, whose business successes had paralleled that of his adopted city, Houston, since 1890, and Frazier, vice president.

The immense structure, its six hundred thousand square feet capacity dwarfing any in the South or Southwest, offered a variety of features impressive in their diversity and originality. Under one roof existed convenience stores, private and general offices, wholesale and retail displays, garage space, distribution and warehouse areas, clubs, lounges, and restaurants. building, designed around a mall that allowed merchants to exhibit their wares in close proximity to their offices, provided such locally unprecedented services as an automatic telephone recording device and a parcel post system with delayed billings. Art Deco detail richly adorned parapet walls and terminus of brick columns, as well as over window bays. Its imaginative location adjacent to Buffalo Bayou, two trunk line railroads, and the city's leading thoroughfare enabled the M & M Building, as locals quickly dubbed it, to break new ground in Houston by combining in one structure rail, truck, and water transportation.

Although local business leaders denied the judgment of the economy as long as possible, the Great Depression eventually exacted its toll. Failing prosperity forced many tenants of the M & M Building to repudiate their leases, precluding the maintenance of operating expenses and interest payments. In 1934, the building went into bankruptcy and ultimately was sold for the benefit of bondholders and creditors.

During this period, however, the structure continued to reflect its initial appeal to diversity, housing oil well suppliers, rubber products, construction materials, brokers, im- porters, wholesalers, shops, and union, consular, and government offices. The postwar euphoria which gripped Houston and the nation revitalized the M&M Building.

In 1948, H. H. Coffield, Rockdale oil millionnaire with extensive warehouse holdings in Houston, successfully bid for control of the edifice. He immediately announced plans for spending up to three-quarters of a million dollars on improvements. Meanwhile, the changing occupancy of the building mirrored the evolving economic scene. The new electronics industry found representation in offices supplying wire recorders, dictating machines, and television services. Motorcycle parts shops and airline offices entered the premises. However, another economic trend exerted a negative influence: suburban sprawl created shopping centers which drew businesses away from the downtown section. Vacancy signs soon dotted the miles of corridors.

Coffield and his son, C. H., strained to reverse the tide. In 1966 they devoted the entire eighth floor to displays of the Houston Home Furnishing Mart and planned for two hundred varied manufacturers from throughout the nation to exhibit their wares. Four months of the trial appeared to bring success, but a similar arrangement at Dallas depressed the market.

The M&M Building entered a new phase in early 1967 when South Texas Junior College moved into four floors of the structure. The largest private two-year college in the state purchased the building two years later. Economic trends again prevailed, as private colleges suffered increasingly stringent competition from public institutions.

Significantly, the University of Houston, itself once a private college acquired the college and the building in 1974. The M&M Building became the home of the University of Houston-Downtown College, appropriately the newest and most innovative campus of the system.

Local significance of the building:
Listed in National Register of Historic Places in 1980.