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downtownian

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    Downtown Apartment Market

    in Downtown

    Posted

    This "Downtown Economic Recovery Monitoring Update / December 2020" posted by Central Houston, Inc. is very interesting - all metrics are downtown from what I can tell:

    Office

    -Estimated 16.1% of employees in-office downtown

    -Office vacancy at 21.2%; rental rates down to $36.41/sf

    Residential

    -Core population of 10,251 residents across 6,279 units

    -Occupancy of 82.6% in December, down 7.4%(!) over last 12 months but inline with 84% in Midtown and 84.3% in Upper Kirby

    -Rent is still 15% premium to other areas

    Lodging

    -14.1% occupancy in November and $131.27 average daily rate = $18.53 RevPAR

    -The historical occupancy by month on page 10 is very interesting - (4.1% occupancy in April 2020!)

    Food and Beverage

    -75% of street level restaurants excluding bars are open and 67% of tunnel restaurants are open

     

    Seems really negative but there is so much potential once things start reopening - the Main Street outdoor seating initiative, POST, all the construction. I'm excited to see how it all plays out. 

     

    Source

    https://www.centralhouston.org/media/filer_public/29/8d/298d8135-942c-49bb-b83b-8cc6f5cccd9b/economic_recovery_update_december_2020.pdf

    • Like 3

    Discovery West: Mixed-Use Development Downtown By Skanska

    in Going Up!

    Posted

    It's great news but hard to wrap my head around it in this context:

    "Almost 51 million square feet of office space – the equivalent of 50 downtown skyscrapers – is currently vacant in Houston." 

    “Houston’s office market was struggling amid a glut of available space even before the outbreak of the deadly COVID-19 coronavirus,” said Wade Bowlin, president of property services, central division of Madison Marquette. 

    And then there could be post-pandemic headwinds of additional working from home reducing the need for space and M&A and consolidation in energy.

    https://realtynewsreport.com/houston-office-vacancy-hits-highest-point-since-1980s-madison-marquette/

     

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    Kiam Building & Kiam Annex At 316-320 Main St.

    in Downtown

    Posted

    Preservation Houston is hosting a web meeting on Dec 15 on efforts to rehabilitate the Kiam Building at 320 Main. I was unaware that any efforts were currently underway. This previously had a Mia Bella on the ground floor until a plumbing issue (I believe) forced it to close and the building is vacant today. 

     

    invite below:
     

    Join Preservation Houston and architect Joe Meppelink for an online Preservation in Practice program Tuesday evening, December 15, examining the restoration of the 1893 Kiam Building downtown, one of Houston’s first proto-skyscrapers, early multi-story buildings that set the stage for taller steel-framed structures.
    8888af9f-462d-4c0e-8437-6ac39033daa9.jpg
    Clothier Ed Kiam built the five-story building to house his clothing store on lower floors with office space above. Architect H.C. Holland designed the building with Romanesque Revival elements including arched windows and rusticated masonry accents. It was said to be the first building in Houston with an electric elevator and drew attention because it was fully outfitted with electric lights when it opened. Over the years, the building had a variety of tenants, including prominent attorneys, architects and the first Houston location of the Sakowitz Bros. department store.

    The Kiam Building was restored in 1981, but has stood vacant in recent years. It was listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983 as part of the Main Street/Market Square National Register historic district and is a contributing building in the City of Houston’s Main Street/Market Square Historic District.

    In his presentation, Meppelink will discuss the Kiam Building’s history and the current work to document and rehabilitate the building while meeting local, state and federal preservation standards.

     

    • Like 10

    Downtown Apartment Market

    in Downtown

    Posted

    Ouch, but not completely unexpected: 

    "McClenny’s report ranks the Downtown as the 42nd worst place on a list of 42 Houston submarkets. The cost of rent in the urban center has dropped 14.3% in the last six months, 12.3% in the last year. Just 271 apartments have opened in the Downtown, and over 1,200 are under construction."

    https://realtynewsreport.com/downtown-apartment-rents-down-14-percent-while-houston-suburbs-hold-firm/

     

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    Downtown Apartment Market

    in Downtown

    Posted

    4 minutes ago, TheSirDingle said:

    Not as bad as I thought, with all the doom and gloom being reported by the newspapers about the Downtown "emptiness", I was suspecting it was low 60%. Hopefully this shows that the recently revived Downtown apartment market is stronger than we thought. 

     

    I think this means we should be seeing a pretty good recovery Q1/Q2 of next year, with Q4 2020 slowly ticking up in occupancy. I'm expecting it to be back in the 89-90% range by the end of Q2 next year. Baring anything absolutely crazy happens.  

     

     

     

    Downtown is strange right now. Weekdays are fairly empty as a fair amount of people are still working from home. You can see this in the lunch spots and the tunnels. Evenings and weekends have some pockets of activity: the Harry Potter bar consistently has long lines, Discovery Green is packed, Bravery Chef Hall is packed, places like Flying Saucer, Pappas Bros are decently busy.

    • Like 5

    Downtown Apartment Market

    in Downtown

    Posted

    8 minutes ago, X.R. said:

    Any update for Q2/Q3? With all the new rooms potentially coming online, I was wondering if there were more up-to-date official numbers counting the amount of housing in the pipeline.

     

    https://www.downtownhouston.org/media/uploads/attachments/2020-10-26/Downtown_Market_Update_2020_Q3.pdf

     

    Q3 occupancy of 83.1%. Seems to be underperforming Montrose/Heights/Kirby on occupancy although rates are holding up

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    POST: Mixed-Use Development At 401 Franklin St.

    in Going Up!

    Posted

    38 minutes ago, cspwal said:

    There's a couple of unusual residences downtown.  The office building next to Houston House is actually just a large house; there's a block-sized warehouse in East Downtown that one couple lives in.  I'm sure there's more that I haven't discovered yet

     

    National Cash Register Building is pretty cool.

     

     

    • Like 9

    Bumpy Pickle: Pickleball/Volleyball Courts At 554 Lockwood Dr.

    in EaDo, the East End, and East Houston

    Posted

    21 minutes ago, JBTX said:

     

    For reasons that I can't articulate, the BBEE developments and the eventual remodel of the Brother's Coffee plant make sense to me, but these just...don't. Maybe if they came AFTER BBEE changes had been done, I'd see it. 

     

    I'm sure after the BBEE development and Brother's Coffee plant redevelopments, land values will be too high to justify using that amount of land for pickle ball courts and a seasonal swimming pool

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