Energy Corridor Bird’s-Eye Update
It’s been a year since Energy Corridor District prez (and Wolff Cos EVP) David Hightower last flew over his submarket with a camera. (As long as he’s doing it and not us, we’re scared of heights.) He just went up again, and man how things have changed. Now there are 12 buildings totaling 4.1M SF under construction (65% pre-leased), up from nine buildings and 2.4M SF last year. Eleven more projects totaling 8.4M SF are in planning. On the east edge of the Corridor, Mac Haik has delivered Energy Tower III, and the 428k SF fourth building is under construction with Spectrum Geo as lead tenant. Pictured is Shell’s Woodbranch campus on Dairy Ashford—two 12-story towers totaling 750k SF recently completed. Work is well underway on 375k SF Building 5, which’ll bring the campus to 2.2M SF. But that’s not all; David hears Shell is gearing up Building 6.
Up Barker Cypress, Wolff’s Ten Oaks is speeding along. Site preparations begin next month for a Courtyard by Marriott and a Hampton Inn & Suites by Hilton. (Luckily someone appears to have put giant visible-from-the-sky signs to indicate where things are going.) Western International is developing the hotels directly across from The Texas Medical Center West Campus, where The Methodist Hospital recently completed its second 166k SF MOB. (That brings the campus to over 1.3M SF, and Texas Children’s has more land to develop.) Hunington Residential purchased a tract (more on that later), and David tells us he’s marketing the 6.6 acres for medical or high-density residential and the 3.3 acres for retail. (There’s lots of demand for restaurants but very few highly trafficked corners left.)
Heading west, the crane on Stena/PM Realty’s 175k SF Jacobs Plaza building recently came down. Simultaneously, the crane for Sasol North America’s 175k SF HQ was being erected.
On Eldridge, work is chugging along on Trammel Crow’s Energy Center. Building III will be 100% occupied by ConocoPhillips next May, and the company will move into Energy Center IV by the end of 2015. Next up: Energy Center V will break ground in the next 30 days. Together, the three buildings will add almost 1.7M SF of office space to the Energy Corridor.
South of Memorial and west of Eldridge, Skanska is about to top out on the first of two 350k SF buildings (1) called West Memorial Place. And construction proceeds briskly on Grayco’s 379-unit apartment and townhome community immediately to the south (2).
Hopping north over I-10 (and down a couple thousand feet of altitude), The Worthing Companies started construction on The Heights at Park Row. The 342-unit luxury apartments will wrap the central garage (shown being erected above) in Wolff Companies’ Central Park. (David tells us he’ll be able to announce several other projects in Central Park soon.) Just around the corner, Blackhaw Partners just purchased 10 acres for another multifamily project.
As we mentioned, Hunington Residential closed last week on an eight-acre tract in Ten Oaks, where it plans to build 382 luxury apartment units and townhomes. Hunington SVP of multifamily Kate Good (here with her partner Sandy Aron) tells us this will be the first luxury wrap project on the east side of the Energy Corridor, which made it hard to find comps to set rent. She selected the site in an attempt to avoid the crazy gridlock on Eldridge, where most other multifamily projects are going in. (Traffic isn’t just for minivans.) She’s also enamored with the site’s access—residents can exit either Greenhouse or Barker Cypress and come down Park Row.
And Kate knows residents will love being adjacent to the hike and bike trails. Hunington is building two esplanades into Addicks/Cullen Park (the two hotels being built adjacent are as well) and will offer bike amenities like tire pumps and perhaps even a vending machine to buy new tubes. But she’s most excited about the project’s pet amenities. Kate tells us 70% of area renters have pets, so this community will have features never before seen in Houston. (We have to wait for the Q4 groundbreaking to find out what, though.) One fun amenity for human residents: A sixth-floor skydeck and an east-facing sky lounge.
For the complete article, please go to:
https://www.bisnow.com/archives/newsletter/houston/2055-another-full-city-centre-tower/