Jun. 8--Downtown Houston's historic Texaco Building, which has been vacant for years, has been bought by a company that is considering transforming it into a hotel. 

The Texaco Building, built in 1915, is one of Houston's finest architectural specimens of old office buildings, according to Stephen Fox, architectural historian at Rice University. 

The 13-story Texaco Building is on a block bounded by Rusk, Capitol, Fannin and San Jacinto. 

It was purchased by Housing Horizons, a subsidiary of Kimberly-Clark Corp. 

Housing Horizons, which specializes in the redevelopment of historic buildings, is part of a partnership transforming the old Humble Oil building on Main Street into a hotel and apartment tower. 

Executives at Housing Horizons, which purchased the property from Sun America for an undisclosed price, are considering a hotel possibly affiliated with the Marriott's Renaissance Hotels chain. 

"We are exploring the possibility of transforming the historic Texaco Building into a Renaissance Hotel," said Suzanne Voeltz, a spokesman for Housing Horizons. 

But it would be premature to discuss any details, and plans for the building are very much up the air, Voeltz said. 

Housing Horizons also is developing a $266 million Renaissance hotel in some historic buildings in St. Louis. The St. Louis project includes the 916-room Renaissance Grand Hotel St. Louis, which is under construction, and the recently opened 165-suite Renaissance St. Louis Suites Hotel. 

As a subsidiary of Kimberly-Clark -- the manufacturer of Kleenex and other products -- Housing Horizons has significant financial heft. 

In addition to projects in San Antonio, New Orleans and St. Louis, Housing Horizons owns a 65 percent stake in the $80 million renovation of the Humble Oil building in Houston. 

Since it was established in 1994, it has invested more than $300 million in redeveloping abandoned factories, schools and office buildings into hotels, apartments and retail space. 

With the Texaco Building, Housing Horizons is getting a tower designed by the long-respected Warren & Wetmore architecture firm, which designed Grand Central Station in Manhattan and other prominent buildings of the early 20th century. 

The Texaco Building -- also known as the Texas Co. Building -- once served as the headquarters for Texaco, the oil company Joseph S. Cullinan founded in Beaumont in 1903 and moved to Houston in 1908. 

Texaco left the building in the 1980s, relocating its regional offices to a new, larger downtown office tower. 

The oil company left behind a beautiful old building wrapped with beige limestone and surrounded by pillars girded with brass. The sidewalks around the building are covered with vaulted limestone arcades covered with intricately laid tile. 

Houston Architectural Guide calls the Texaco Building, "the most princely of Houston's early 20th century skyscrapers." 

The building is a key element in a revitalization trend that has been sweeping through downtown Houston over the past five years or so. 

In 1998, the redevelopment of the Rice Hotel into 300 apartments validated downtown as a popular place to live. Subsequently, several other old buildings were transformed into apartments or trendy condominiums sporting loft-style interiors. 

The 2000 opening of the Enron Field baseball stadium, recently renamed Minute Maid Park, also provided a lot of momentum for downtown. With dozens of new nightclubs and restaurants, downtown shed its image of being a place where nothing happens after dark. 

A new arena under construction for the Houston Rockets, a 1,200-room convention hotel and the enlargement of the George R. Brown Convention Center all create a lot of promise for the downtown hoteliers. 

"We are enthusiastic about Houston," Voeltz said, referring to the plethora of new projects and amenities under construction. 

A number of new hotel redevelopment projects have been proposed for downtown. 

A Louisiana developer called leTriomphe Property Group had proposed to redevelop the Texaco Building into a 325-room Ritz-Carlton hotel, but that deal fell through because of a lack of financing. 

But other hotel developers -- prodded on by a perception that downtown has a shortage of hotels -- are moving ahead. 

The Steven Holtze Co. of Denver is redeveloping a historic 22-story building at the corner of Texas and Fannin into the Magnolia Hotel. 

Tilman Fertitta of Landry Restaurants is moving to transform an old building across from Minute Maid Park into another hotel. And the old Sam Houston Hotel at 1117 Prairie is being redeveloped into a hotel by Spire Realty. 

By the end of the year, redevelopment of the Humble Oil Building is expected to be complete. 

The Humble building will include 82 apartments, a 252-space parking garage and two hotels: a 191-room Courtyard by Marriott and a 171-room Residence Inn by Marriott. 

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