Montrose Collective: Office Building With Retail At 888 Westheimer Rd.

[trymahjong]

Hmmmmm.......wondering if imagery showed large horse topiary (pre2001)on 800 block Westheimer right of way? thought that plant shop next to HPD storefront should have taken better care of it.  Still the poor old creature lasted till it was torn down last week.......

Edited February 6, 2020 by trymahjong

[HoustonIsHome]

On 1/25/2020 at 2:31 PM, Avossos said:

most wouldn’t survive being removed and the labor cost to get them out would be high. It’s a nice idea though... some things would have a better chance at surviving than others. These materials are best grounded up and used as mulch.

Not necessarily true. At this time of year just about everything I stick in the ground or transplant does exceedly well. Even 15 foot trees transplant very well this time of year.

 

Anyway this is a long overdue facelift for this area.  It's too visible an an area to look so unattractive. Sad to see all the memories torn down but new ones will be made in construction that is more uplifting for the area.

[MidCenturyMoldy]

13 hours ago, clutchcity94 said:

What was where the Menil Collection building is now? Was it just a bigger Menil Park?

 

You know, as I find happens to me a lot in Houston, I don't remember what was there before.

[MidCenturyMoldy]

4 hours ago, architeckton said:

Google Earth historical imagery ...

Ooh! Thanks! I was wondering where I could find information like this.

Edited February 6, 2020 by MidCenturyMoldy

[architeckton]

2 hours ago, MidCenturyMoldy said:

Ooh! Thanks! I was wondering where I could find information like this.

 

FYI, you can download Google Earth Pro for free. Then go to the "view > historical imagery" and you can tab thru the years on record.

[MidCenturyMoldy]

46 minutes ago, architeckton said:

FYI, you can download Google Earth Pro for free. Then go to the "view > historical imagery" and you can tab thru the years on record.

Thanks. I already had it and looked at the historical data immediately upon reading your post.

[mkultra25]

11 hours ago, architeckton said:

 

Google Earth historical imagery shows houses for 1944, 1978, and then jumps to 1989 when the Menil was already complete.

 

If memory serves, someone has posted here in the past about living in one of the houses that formerly occupied the land where the Menil now sits.  

[MidCenturyMoldy]

4 hours ago, mkultra25 said:

 

If memory serves, someone has posted here in the past about living in one of the houses that formerly occupied the land where the Menil now sits.  

From the 1978 map, it looks like there are apartments on the Mandell end of the block. That is what I thought I remembered.

Edited February 7, 2020 by MidCenturyMoldy

[gene]

Back to the topic at hand............................

any new photos? did they knock down the tower?! haha!

 

[architeckton]

On 2/4/2020 at 5:20 PM, architeckton said:

Tower is gone.

 

I posted one on Tuesday with the tower knocked down. The site should be clear of debris by now. Just haven't made it back out there.

[gene]

thank you!!!!! I wonder how fast this project will go!? i for one am excited to see what this brings to one of my favorite areas of Houston!

[dbigtex56]

9 hours ago, gene said:

did they knock down the tower?! haha!

 

Only after forcibly evicting Rapunzel.

[cityliving]

Construction site this morning, remaining debris being hauled away.

Edited February 8, 2020 by cityliving

[hindesky]

[Urbannizer]

@CREguy13 🤖

 

https://www.costar.com/article/691455146/construction-begins-on-trendy-walkable-project-on-houstons-coolest-street

[cityliving]

32 minutes ago, Urbannizer said:

@CREguy13 🤖

 

https://www.costar.com/article/691455146/construction-begins-on-trendy-walkable-project-on-houstons-coolest-street

Thanks for posting, it would be great if we could read the Entire article, unfortunately it looks like you have to be a “Subscriber “ of Costar to read the entire article.☹️

Edited February 10, 2020 by cityliving

[Luminare]

4 hours ago, cityliving said:

Thanks for posting, it would be great if we could read the Entire article, unfortunately it looks like you have to be a “Subscriber “ of Costar to read the entire article.☹️

 

Its why CREguy13 was tagged. We should get more info in a bit.

[CREguy13]

Costar article:

 

Houston's coolest street is about to get cooler. A plan to transform a section of lower Westheimer into a trendy, tree-studded retail-office hub with a modern library is beginning to take shape in the Montrose neighborhood.

 

Construction on Montrose Collective, a 150,000-square-foot-project, is officially underway, the project's developers have found a finance partner, and a lead office tenant has inked a new lease.

 

Radom Capital, the Houston-based development firm known for creating hip, walkable projects such as Heights Mercantile, has formed a joint venture with institutional investors advised by JPMorgan Asset Management for the project. The team hired the Michael Hsu Office of Architecture, an Austin-based design firm behind Uchi restaurants, Understory and several other high-profile Texas projects.

 

Montrose Collective is at 802 and 888 Westheimer Road in an area recently named as one of the nation’s top 20 coolest streets in a report by Cushman & Wakefield because of its walkability, diversity, nightlife, food scene and vintage stores. Nearly 97,000 people live within a 2-mile radius of the area with a median income of $83,233, according to the report. About 37% of residents nearby are millennials, the report found.

 

Radom Capital and Michael Hsu sought to design a project that blends into the neighborhood with mid-rise buildings and a canopy of preserved live oak trees. Plans call for about 40,000 square feet of high-end shops and restaurants, plus about 110,000 square feet of office space and a modern roughly 16,000-square-foot public library building. The project is estimated to cost at least $38.9 million for the three mid-rise buildings, according to state records. With a planned opening of late 2021, Montrose Collective is expected to bring six new dining options, along with 15 boutique retail spaces for local and first-to-market retailers, plus beauty and service providers.

 

The Montrose Collective team didn’t want to just create a "boring box" retail center or typical office building.

"Montrose is really the hub of everything creative and has the No. 1 concentration of James Beard Award winners in the state. We wanted to do something scaled to the neighborhood," Steve Radom, principal of Radom Capital, said in an interview with CoStar News.

 

The team plans to build a four-story structure that connects to a six-story structure with a cantilevered walkway. The buildings open to an outdoor plaza with seating, greenery, trees and unique lighting fixtures.

Radom Capital hired landscape architect, the Office of James Burnett, to design exterior public improvements that include decoratively tiled sidewalks, an expansive green wall that wraps around one of the buildings, hanging plants and custom planters throughout the site.

 

"This is truly a mixed-use project and it's going to look like it belongs in the Montrose neighborhood," said Parker Duffie, vice president at CBRE, who is handling office leasing for the project with CBRE's Elliot Hirshfeld.

 

The project already has signed a lease with an undisclosed technology company for about 75,000 square feet of office space on floors 4, 5 and 6 in one of the buildings, according to the project team. There is roughly 35,000 square feet of office space left in the project, according to the team.

The roughly 2.5-acre project is planned along the north side of Westheimer on both sides of Grant Street. The property includes the existing Uchi restaurant and the building next door with Hue hair salon and Rosemont Social, which will all remain on site. East of those buildings across Grant Street, buildings that previously housed a Greek restaurant called Theo’s and a city of Houston police station are getting demolished.

 

Construction is starting after the Houston City Council in December approved a deal with the Montrose Collective team to transfer ownership of the land where the former police station was housed at 802 Westheimer to the developers. City officials closed the police station as part of an initiative to get more police officers on the streets instead of behind a desk, according to a Dec. 3 city council agenda item. The police department is expanding its online reporting services and closing police stations in most communities, according to the city.

 

In exchange for the land, developers are building a new public library for the city to replace the aging Freed-Montrose Library at 4100 Montrose. The city will maintain ownership of the library at 10001 California St. through a condominium unit agreement with Montrose Collective. Radom said he sought a condo agreement for the library to secure financing for the rest of the project easier.

 

The library building design includes a two-story custom art installation to be designed by a local artist, according to developers. The city expects to open the new library by 2022, and close the 70-year old Freed Montrose Library.

 

It is rare for a public library to be in a privately built mixed-use project, but Radom Capital said the team is emulating Bookmarks, a public library in Dallas in the NorthPark Center. Radom Capital said it also took inspiration from the new Austin public library downtown that has drawn accolades for its design, retail and outdoor landscaped plaza near the privately built mixed-use Seaholm District.

 

"I love taking my kids to the library. We really liked the idea of a mixed-use project, not just being your traditional mixed-use project. Our thought was what is more endearing to the community than a community library?" Radom said. He is envisioning a "dynamic, interesting" "house of books” with events, programming and retail.

 

The plans will introduce new office to a neighborhood without a substantial amount of office space and bring additional retail to an area already attractive to real estate developers. The city of Houston granted 28 building permits for sites on Westheimer Road in 2018, which is double the number of permits issued in 2017, according to Cushman & Wakefield's report.

[clutchcity94]

Anyone know what tech company already signed a lease? Did we steal a company away from Austin??

[gene]

wow fantastic....thanks for posting the whole article @CREguy13 (and for bringing it to our attention @Urbannizer )!

my dream is that they would do the same in the space where Smoothie King is and then BOTH north and south east corners of Montrose (half priced books plaza AND the gas station)...and then have them all connected via huge bank tubes where you stand or lay in them and then just shoot over the street 😃 (and really, i think this project is going to be so AMAZING for Montrose!) 

[swtsig]

1 hour ago, clutchcity94 said:

Anyone know what tech company already signed a lease? Did we steal a company away from Austin??

 

tech is a broad term but it's the perfect type of tenant for this kind of development. don't think this is a nab from another city as i'm pretty sure they have an existing presence here but i could be wrong. either way it's a great anchor office tenant.

[j_cuevas713]

12 minutes ago, swtsig said:

 

tech is a broad term but it's the perfect type of tenant for this kind of development. don't think this is a nab from another city as i'm pretty sure they have an existing presence here but i could be wrong. either way it's a great anchor office tenant.

It is, but this city needs every level of tech it can get. This is huge actually. And who knows, it may be a huge name we just don't know yet. 

Edited February 10, 2020 by j_cuevas713

[clutchcity94]

20 minutes ago, swtsig said:

 

tech is a broad term but it's the perfect type of tenant for this kind of development. don't think this is a nab from another city as i'm pretty sure they have an existing presence here but i could be wrong. either way it's a great anchor office tenant.

Cmon you can private message me the details...I’m a ClutchFans BBS ‘01’er 

 

[kennyc05]

18 hours ago, clutchcity94 said:

Cmon you can private message me the details...I’m a ClutchFans BBS ‘01’er 

 

Clutchfans since middle school 😏

[architeckton]

Another article in the HBJ.

 

 

Quote

 

 

Montrose Collective, a mixed-use development set to house the relocated Freed-Montrose library, has broken ground, according to a press release. 

 

The project, by Houston-based Radom Capital and designed by Austin-based Michael Hsu Office of Architecture, will span 100,000 square feet of office space, 50,000 square feet of retail space and 10,000 square feet of library space across four buildings. It will include six restaurants and 15 retail spaces, both first-to-market and local. The project is estimated to be completed late 2021 and is located at the 800 block of Westheimer Road.

 

“Montrose has always been Houston’s epicenter for art, the birthplace of our cafe and counter-culture, and one of our most open and complete neighborhoods," Radom Managing Principal Steve Radom said in the release.  “We envisioned Montrose Collective as a public space that respects the existing context, weaving together community gathering spaces and porous buildings that welcome neighbors and guests.”  

 

The entire Collective will consist of three new constructions and two repurposed historic buildings. This project is the fifth collaboration between Radom and Hsu – one such past project is the M-K-T in the Heights. 

 

“We worked to infuse the creative character and energy of the Montrose neighborhood into every aspect of the design,” Michael Hsu, founder and principal of Michael Hsu Office of Architecture, said in the release.

 

The ground level of the project will include cafes, retail and boutique fitness, while the upper floor will have office, beauty and service businesses, along with the library. The library will have an outdoor planted reading terrace, children’s programming and new technology. It will have onsite property management, structured parking and 24-hour security. 

 

Current tenants at the space, per its website, include Rosemont, Southside Espresso and Hue Salon. 

 

“Our team emphasized wellness as a project goal, combining planted patios with abundant energy-efficient glazing,” Evan Peterson, development director of Radom Capital, said in the release.  “We also believe that great placemaking requires differentiation and texture, so we included public art, exposed structural members and warm shaded soffits to create a uniquely layered urban environment.”

 

Other firms on the project are the Office of James Burnett, landscape architect; HOK, structural engineer; Kimley-Horn, civil engineering; DBR, mechanical, engineering and plumbing; DE Harvey Builders, project contractor; JLL, capital market services; and CBRE, office leasing. 

 

Buildings such as the former Theo’s Greek Restaurant at 812 Westheimer Road have closed to make room for Montrose Collective.

 

[Luminare]

Drove by to see. Still cars for the other retail using the parking lot still. They are starting to dig up the back portion of the lot where the garage will go. I'm thinking that they are going to build the garage first and once that is done they will then shift people that use that other parking lot over to the new garage and then build the library. This is mostly based on my own intuition, so until I'm able to get a source to back it up take it with a grain of salt.

 

I'll try to get pics of the excavation for the garage tomorrow during lunch.

[monarch]

 

 

 

 

 

^^^ there seems to be so many renderings/concepts/depictions... currently, for the MONTROSE COLLECTIVE... that i am not all that certain, as to what is actually being constructed...?

 

 

Edited February 12, 2020 by monarch

[architeckton]

48 minutes ago, monarch said:

 

 

 

 

 

^^^ there seems to be so many renderings/concepts/depictions currently, for the MONTROSE COLLECTIVE... that i am not all that certain as to what is actually being constructed...?

 

 

 

Pretty sure that these are all the same project, just different views. You can catch glimpses of each part in the others. Guess we will see as its built.

[jmancuso]

So I assume the building(s) Uchi, Hue Salon, etc are in are going to stay and be incorporated into new development? 

 

As for the Freed Montrose Library, I hope whoever moves into that space when the library moves restores it because it's a great building and definitely worth saving. 

[Luminare]

1 hour ago, jmancuso said:

So I assume the building(s) Uchi, Hue Salon, etc are in are going to stay and be incorporated into new development? 

 

As for the Freed Montrose Library, I hope whoever moves into that space when the library moves restores it because it's a great building and definitely worth saving. 

 

Site Plan for reference:

 

I don't remember if it was a rumor or reported by a publication, but the older library building is going to St. Thomas if I remember correctly. Someone else will have to pick up the ball on that one.