Fred E Rizk

Fred E Rizk died Nov. 5 2011 in a Houston hospice after a two-year struggle with thymic cancer, said a nephew, Shible Simon. After moving his office into his home, Rizk continued working as owner and chief executive officer of The Rizk Group and Fred Rizk Construction Co. until about three weeks before his death. Born March 21, 1925, in Des Moines, Iowa, to a Syrian mother and Lebanese father, Rizk served in the U.S. Navy from 1943 to 1946. He returned to Des Moines to earn a bachelor's degree at Drake University and then moved to Houston in 1952 to attend the University of Houston Law Center. Admitted to the state bar in 1957, he opted for a career in construction and real estate investment. His projects included Three Fountains Development Center, a complex of apartments, townhouses, office buildings and a shopping center on Fountainview between Westheimer and San Felipe, which he built in the late 1960s with his business partner at the time, Bob Lanier, later Houston mayor. Rizk designed the Three Fountains apartments, among the city's first with spacious courtyards between buildings and swimming pools. He was a former commissioner of the Houston Housing Authority and Houston Planning Commission and served on the Rafik Hariri Scholarship Foundation. He leaves his wife, Sylvia Robbinson Rizk, and sons, Rex Robbinson Rizk and Randall "Rocky" Reid Rizk, all of Austin, where Rizk maintained a second home; son Edward "Eddie" G. Rizk of Houston; and a brother, Dr. Edward G. Rizk, Houston.