The former Social Security Administration office at 3100 Smith St. and its gorilla-hawking mural wall are no more, following some weekend excavator grazing. Demo permits were issued last week for structure, which sat north of Elgin on part of the planned site of developer Morgan’s next Pearl-branded apartment development (the one with the built-in ground floor Whole Foods).

City permission for the planned mixed-use building to cozy up to the street were approved in February; the project will also straddle that now-closed segment of Rosalie St. between Smith and Brazos onto a section of the previously cleared block to the north. Here’s what the layout might look like from above, per the plans included with the variance request:

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The early-spring variance approvals also included permission to extend a canopy shade structure further out than normally allowed at the corner of Elgin and Smith. Here’s a cross-section of the whole shebang from the east, showing the split-level grocery space sandwiched between 2 sets of 2 levels of parking and topped off by the Pearl and its central pool courtyard:

And here are the final hours of 3100 Smith St. and the other elaborate paint jobs on the structure — in the shots below, Sebastien Boileau’s Pray for Paris wall is already gone, and the dancing lady and colorful splotches of Michael Savoie’s American Queen mural can be seen going . . .

. . . going . . .

. . . and gone.

Images: ThaChadwick (photos); Houston Planning Commission (plan views)

Rosalie Redecoration