{"id":461508,"date":"2025-12-21T04:44:12","date_gmt":"2025-12-21T04:44:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461508\/"},"modified":"2025-12-21T04:44:12","modified_gmt":"2025-12-21T04:44:12","slug":"harris-county-dedicates-historic-downtown-building-honoring-sylvester-turner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/461508\/","title":{"rendered":"Harris County dedicates historic downtown building honoring Sylvester Turner"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A historic 20-story downtown Houston building <a href=\"http:\/\/communityimpact.com\/houston\/bellaire-meyerland-west-university\/government\/2025\/03\/27\/harris-county-downtown-building-being-renamed-after-sylvester-turner\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">has officially been renamed and dedicated<\/a> after late U.S. Representative and former Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner on Dec. 17.<\/p>\n<p><strong>The gist<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Harris County Sylvester Turner Administration building is located at 1010 Lamar St., Houston, and houses Harris County\u2019s Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity. The building will also be the future site for members of the Harris County Attorney\u2019s Office, according to county officials.<\/p>\n<p>The building formerly housed the clothing store chain Sakowitz that opened in the 1950s and was a fitting location to honor Turner, Harris County Precinct 1 Commissioner Rodney Ellis said. The building tributes Turner\u2019s upbringing taking the local bus from north Houston to Downtown Houston.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" alt=\"The downtown building located at 1010 Lamar St., Houston, houses Harris County\u2019s Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity and is the future site for members of the Harris County Attorney\u2019s Office, according to county officials. The building formerly housed the clothing store chain Sakowitz that opened in the 1950's. (Courtesy Office of County Judge Lina Hidalgo)\" height=\"534\" src=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/uploads\/images\/2025\/12\/19\/401467.jpeg\" class=\"include_body\" onerror=\"this.src=\" width=\"800\"\/>The downtown building located at 1010 Lamar St., Houston, houses Harris County\u2019s Department of Economic Equity and Opportunity and is the future site for members of the Harris County Attorney\u2019s Office, according to county officials. The building formerly housed the clothing store chain Sakowitz that opened in the 1950s. (Courtesy Office of County Judge Lina Hidalgo)<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He grew up, as you know, on that [METRO] 44 bus coming into downtown and looking at these big buildings,&#8221; Ellis said.<\/p>\n<p>Members of Sylvester Turner\u2019s family attended the ribbon-cutting ceremony alongside both the city of Houston and Harris County officials. His daughter Ashley Turner Captain said her father took a lot of pride working with the county.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThank you all so much for voting unanimously to honor my dad in this way by naming a building after him,\u201d Captain said. \u201cYou know, he took a lot of pride in working closely with the county. That wasn&#8217;t by accident. He really did feel like we needed to work together as the city of Houston and Harris County.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><b>How we got here<\/b><\/p>\n<p>Harris County commissioners unanimously approved the <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/houston\/bellaire-meyerland-west-university\/government\/2025\/03\/27\/harris-county-downtown-building-being-renamed-after-sylvester-turner\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">building renaming during the March 27 court meeting<\/a>. Commissioners also <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/houston\/bellaire-meyerland-west-university\/government\/2025\/03\/25\/preview-harris-county-to-consider-honoring-sylvester-turner-addressing-court-backlog\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">approved a resolution<\/a> at the March meeting honoring the life and legacy of Turner, who <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/houston\/bellaire-meyerland-west-university\/government\/2025\/03\/05\/us-representative-former-houston-mayor-sylvester-turner-dies-at-70\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">died March 5<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Turner attended Klein High School in north Houston where he was bused to the all-white school with other Black students during an era of desegregation, Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo said. At Klein, he went on to become a debate champion, student body president and valedictorian of his graduating class.<\/p>\n<p>Before <a href=\"https:\/\/communityimpact.com\/houston\/bellaire-meyerland-west-university\/government\/2025\/03\/05\/us-representative-former-houston-mayor-sylvester-turner-dies-at-70\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">becoming Houston mayor<\/a> in 2016, Turner served in the Texas House of Representatives for 27 years and spent 21 years on the House Appropriations Committee. Turner served as Houston&#8217;s mayor for two terms from 2016 to 2024.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhat makes Sylvester special was that he didn&#8217;t just dream for himself, he dreamed for all of us,\u201d Ellis said. \u201cHis values came from his community. He believed in giving people respect and opening doors that had been shut, and in widening the circle of opportunity so that every child could have a path forward.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&gt;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A historic 20-story downtown Houston building has officially been renamed and dedicated after late U.S. Representative and former&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":461509,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[30524,4345,5432,210564,55346,358,3187,210565],"class_list":{"0":"post-461508","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-harris-county-commissioners","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-houston-news","11":"tag-mayor-sylvester-turner","12":"tag-sylvester-turner","13":"tag-texas","14":"tag-tx","15":"tag-u-s-rep-sylvester-turner"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115755737143341039","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461508","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=461508"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/461508\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/461509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=461508"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=461508"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=461508"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}