What is now an abandoned office building in Rice Village won’t be here much longer.

It’s a place Ron Stein remembers as the anchor of a small community—that is about to grow very fast.

In two years, Bolsover Street will be partially closed.

It will be at the center of a massive condo, retail, and office complex.

Because Bolsolver is a public street - before the developer could build this, it had to convince the city council to sell the street.

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“So you can see why people are very passionate about this because change is coming to the village and none of us really like change,” said Anne Clutterbuck with Houston City Council.

This is not the first time the city has abandoned a road.

Not even in the Rice Village area.

But Houston Mayor Bill White says the way this one happened made him want to rethink the way the city does this in the future. “What we’ve done here is really try to make reasonable improvements.”

For two weeks the Mayor has been working on new procedures the city should follow when it sells public streets.

In this case the city got two appraisals for the property, which were nearly $1 million apart.

Mayor White says next time, the process shouldn’t be so haphazard.

“It’s a walking village, it’s a place where people know each other it’s a true village,” said Stein.

And soon Stein will have a condo full of new neighbors.

The developer says potential buyers have reserved all but four of the new condos.