More multifamily housing for the Energy Corridor?
By Jenny Agee-Aldridge
The Energy Corridor will not migrate west, but it will include much more multifamily and retail development, according to a major developer of the area since the 1970s.
“It’s eventually going to look like the Galleria area through here with a lot of high-density residential and office space,” said David Hightower, executive vice president and chief development officer of Wolff Cos.
More than one in five jobs created since 2011 has been in energy, according to the Texas Workforce Commission, and the Greater Houston Partnership forecasts the sector will add 5,600 new jobs to the Houston area this year.
All of those new employees need a place to live, and many are in their 20s and 30s, a group that prefers the amenities and convenience luxury apartments provide.
“The young professional of today doesn’t want to buy a single-family home right away. They want a place where they can live, work and play,” Hightower said. “They want all of the amenities, and they don’t want a roommate.”
As we drove through the corridor, Starbucks cups in hand, Hightower shared his vision of the future for the area, a place he helped develop and will continue to develop.
“Some day, all of this will be gone,” he said, pointing to the smaller, two-story office buildings along Park Row in the Energy Corridor.
He predicts the oil companies will continue to build and do business in the corridor, and not follow Exxon’s example moving farther west to the Woodlands area. With about 98 percent of the property in the area already built, developers will begin purchasing sites, “scraping” older builders off, to make way for new construction, he said, many focusing on mixed-use developments with multifamily housing.
The trend has already begun with PM Realty Group announcing it will develop a 37-acre piece of land for a mixed-use development that includes the former chemical headquarter facility of Exxon Mobil Corp. (NYSE XOM). The property is adjacent to BP America headquarters.
“The PM property could be the first livable center we will see,” Hightower said.
But it won’t be the last.
New apartment complexes will be dense, squeezing many buildings onto one site, but will probably not go over four stories high, since fire codes dictate specific rules for building over four stories, which can get quite expensive, Hightower said. And they will cater to oil employees, with great success, I’m sure.
Wolff Cos. is currently developing Ten Oaks, a 23-acre tract in the west portion of the corridor and home to the offices of Texas Children’s Medical and Methodist Hospital Medical centers.
“I have retailers calling me all the time,” he said. “They can’t get in here fast enough.”
A deal hasn’t been signed, but Hightower assures me the area will almost certainly include a Starbucks.
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