buildingunbuildingrebuilding
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Everything posted by buildingunbuildingrebuilding
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Leasing agent told me they were over 90% leased now. When I shopped it late 2008 they were offering 2 months free, making it highly competitive with comps.
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Rice University Campus Developments
buildingunbuildingrebuilding replied to sttombiz's topic in Going Up!
Amen! -
Just to clarify, my comments were in regard to the Domain in Austin that was pictured above in the thread. I have no knowledge beyond what I have read here and elsewhere on what Randall plans for the Village.
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Its an internal street. You can drive on it, but its not really connected to any city grid. Its mostly for look and feel, I think, but if you want to drive on it between the anchors you can.
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811 Main: Office Skyscraper At 811 Main St.
buildingunbuildingrebuilding replied to houstonfella's topic in Downtown
If this building was completed in 2005, the materials were likely purchased a couple years earlier. Costs have gone up considerably since then. And I don't know about the building you lived in, but I toured another building by that developer in Chicago and even though new it was nowhere near as nice as the new apartment construction we are seeing in hirises here (or obviously in nicer condo buildings in Chicago). Whoever estimated $300 psf for Hines tower is probably close. -
My underrstanding is that Simmons Vedder is developing this and its not actually Phase 2 of Esplanade.
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judging by all the balconies, looks to have residential.
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It's close.
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Word on the street is that they have not made much project in retail leasing beyond Whole Foods. Hanover is slated to build high-rise apartments and they are appearently working to bring in a Ritz Carlton (with condos?), but this project does not appear to be moving forward anywhere near as quickly as might have been expected.
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If your condescension makes you feel better, good for you. But those apartments are 93% occupied with rents over $1,500 a door, one of the highest rates in the city. Perhaps they are not architecturally significant, but they are quite pleasant. Since when is designing a nice apartment complex that people want to live in a crime?
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I don't buy the idea that you need cutting edge architecture to have a quality project. Heck, I don't want to see a Guggenheim on every street corner. There have been numerous quality projects built in Houston in the last several years- Museum Tower, Sabine Lofts, Esplanade at Museum Circle (or whatever its called), Five Houston Center, Villa d'Este, Market Street in Woodlands, Anadarko Tower, Jackson Hill Apartments, etc.. All are quality representations of what the developers sought to achieve, not just ugly crap quickly thrown together. These are real buildings done well.
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This overgeneralization isn't fair at all. Houston-based developers have and continue to build top-notch projects here and elsewhere. Finger and Hanover are 2 of the top multifamily developers around, building interesting luxurious apartments. Borlenghi has done some nice stuff, as have many others. and lest we forget Hines. Sure, Houston developers also build some crap, but the quality of product produced by many Houston developers stacks up with anybody out there.
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Don't know what happened, but spoke with someone this week who was considering funding the deal. Wish I could shed more light, but that's all I know. Looks like this one is still teetering. If I had to bet, though, I would bet it gets done. But I wouldn't bet very much.
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A friend of mine lived there (the name escapes me) right as they were about to knock it down. Great party at the end, as obviously nobody was worried about security deposits (or punching holes in the wall or similar activities).
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To bring it back on topic, to the extent develping condos in Houston makes sense it is at a site like this with walkable retail/restaurants.
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a quick web search yields the following: http://www.highrises.com/city_buildings.as..._keyword=dallas Not all new, not all condo, not necessarily everything in Dallas. But if someone wants to do a comparison, feel free. And you are correct that the downtown Dallas office market is still in terrible shape. Never meant to suggest that Dallas is in any way better than Houston or has a stronger overall real estate market, just that it has had more condo demand over the past several years. As has Atlanta. Doesn't make Houston a bad place- I like it or wouldn't live here- just not a condo mecca (and as investors who bought condos here 25 years ago know, buying a condo here ain't necessarily all that wise anyway).
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Nobody disputes a bunch of condos were built during the early '80s. Basically everything (apartments, office, retail, etc.. ) was overbuilt here then, as oil was on its way to $100 per barrell and Houston was the center of the world. And then the bust, over 100,000 people left town, and we had an overhang well into the '90s. But if we dispassionately look at the number of condos built- and their success- over the past 5-10 years, Houston lags behind its peer cites (Dallas and Atlanta, primarily).
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Many of these, of course, are rental- One Park Place, Royalton (originally), 1200, Mosaic (???), Dominion, Museum, Riverway, off the top of my head. And the condos have generally struggled- Mercer, Royalton, Mark, Robinhood have all been troubled. Many others never got built. If you think Houston is a great condo market, I wish you luck. But I would have a hard time recommending high-rise condo in Houston to any developer except under ideal circumstances at an irreplacable location. Many a developer has tried and most have failed. I think that's the first time I've ever seen anyone agree with you!
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Except that she is right. There were certainly several condo towers built in the '70s and early '80s, but there were almost no high-rise condominiums built in Houston from the mid '80s to the late '90s. Since then there have been but a handful; Borlenghi had done well, but very few others (Randall with his midrises, of course). When you look at the number of townhomes built in the Inner Loop and Galleria during the past decade, and compare that to the number of high-rise condos, its hard to say that this is a high-rise city. How many upscale condo projects have been anounced and cancelled? Obviously some of this happens in every city, but Houston has seen far less high-rise condo construction in the past decade than Atlanta or Dallas. Wishing it were otherwise doesn't change matters. Some of the anounced deals will come to fruition, but its not as if we are the only city with condos on the drawing board. It is easy to pick on Nancy or the Chronicle, and obviously they don't know everything that is in the pipeline because developers don't want the public to know about their projects until they are ready. But Nancy is more knowledgable about what is going on in the Houston real estate market than just about any reporter I have known over the past decade. She is a solid journalist, trustworthy to not burn a source, competent and discreet. And unlike some online real estate sites, her articles are clearly written and not utter fabrications.
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Dallas seems to have more mixed use- Victory and West Village are examples of fiarly large projects in the city, along with Mockingbird and their Galleria. Once you get out to the suburbs Southlake has an extensive town square, Legacy Town Center, Richardson is building one near transit, Frisco near the minor league ball park. This is just off the top of my head. Austin gets mixed use because they want it, and with their tight zoning and strong neighborhood groups they can better dictate development. Both Dallas and Atlanta seem to have a much more vibrant hirise condo market, although both are in danger of being overbuilt. Scottsdale (suburban Phoenix) has a rediculous amount of new or anounced condos, but Phoenix isn't really any more urban of a city than Houston.
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Our lack of zoning actually contributes to the dearth of mixed use project as opposed to other cities. The difficulty in getting zoning approval in some cites lets cities steer the kind of develoment they want. Here we can build whatever makes most economic sense (not that this is a bad thing), which means we go with what we know can get done and be profitable. But once land prices reach a certain level, we are seeing developers trying to get creative to ring maximum value out of sites like BLVD Place. We shall see whether it works.
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Anyone who knew the developer knew Shamrock wouldn't get built. Orion should have been built, but the 2 codevelopers had a major falling out and it got all screwed up. I wouldn't count out Westcreek just yet, although that is going to take some time.
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BLVD Place is Uptown, judging by the flying saucers hanging from the intersections. Oaks District doesn't have the UFOs hovering, so perhaps not. Considering its proximity to West Loop as well as Highland Village/River Oaks, however, its situated pretty well.
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Point is that with part of each site dedicated to residential and hotel there is not that much additional retail, it is at great location in cool projects, and will be a couple years minimum before the bulk of it comes online. I would expect these would be a destination. Let's not forget that Galleria is Houston's #1 tourist venue. People get excited about retail downtown, but Uptown is Houston's top retail zone.
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Oaks District is about 2 years out, at least. Considering they are both planning luxury hotel and residential, I would think there is plenty of retai l to go around. Both these developments will really add to the overall strength of the Uptown area- right now other than Galleria itself there is really not that much upscale retail in Uptown when compared to other cities our size (Uptown Dallas, Lenox/Buckhead in Atlanta, for instance).