Greenway Coffee Co., the roasting operation behind Blacksmith’s coffee (in the former Westheimer home of Mary’s), appears to be involved in a coffee project intended for the ground floor of the 1917 Cheek-Neal Coffee Co. building. The former coffee plant at 2017 Preston St. (located across Congress Ave. from the Loaves and Fishes soup kitchen and SEARCH Homeless Services’s under-construction employment center) received little use or maintenance following the 1946 departure of coffee manufacturing operations; the building is currently being renovated after sitting vacant for years across 59 from Minute Maid Park.

2017 Preston’s new owners mentioned plans to put a coffee shop on the ground floor of the structure to the Houston Chronicle in September — and on Friday, Greenway’s David Buehrer posted a photo of the renovation’s interior progress to Instagram:

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The property at 2017 Preston was used from 1917 until 1946 to manufacture Cheek-Neal’s Maxwell House Coffee; the Maxwell brand was sold to what eventually became Kraft Foods in 1928, and operations moved to a new facility on Harrisburg Blvd. in 1946. (That Harrisburg plant was sold to Maximus Coffee in 2006, shortly after which the iconic Maxwell House coffee cup sign was removed; the company was rebranded as Atlantic Solutions Coffee in 2014 following a labor strike at the plant during the previous fall.)

In September, the new owners of 2017 Preston mentioned the possibility of conversion of the building into a boutique hotel, but said they were at that point more focused on the renovation than on finding tenants.

Photos: HoustonMidtown via HAIF (2017 Preston St. exterior); David Buehrer via Instagram (interior shot)

Preston St. Coffee Buzz