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March 23, 2005, 11:14PM

At Memorial City, a lifestyle in development

Project will surround mall with residences, offices

By DAVID KAPLAN and NANCY SARNOFF

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THIS is &*(*()#&)#ing AWESOME! I mean..200 acres of prime mid rise development..plus the 37 acre Town& Country development, which will be similar...This makes the Pavillion replacement Project look puny in comparison!

OH, and there is a referecne to the Aramore in Buckhead. Here is a pic:

3034526_0.jpg

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THIS is &*(*()#&)#ing AWESOME!  I mean..200 acres of prime mid rise development..plus the 37 acre Town& Country development, which will be similar...This makes the Pavillion replacement Project look puny in comparison!

yes.......... and being done all while the Katy Freeway is being reconstructed. It'll need to be its own city cause you won't be able to drive anywhere else!

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I would be a little more excited about this development if it wasn't centered around a shopping mall, but nevertheless it looks like a good project.

I have to tell you that Metro National is very impressive. What they have done to that area is nothing bust spectacular. I had an opportunity to go to work for them a few years back. I declined the offer because I did not want to work as a property manager. Part of me wishes I would have sucked it up and worked my way into the development side. But that is my problem.

Metro National recently bought the land by One Briarlake Plaza at BW8 and Briar Forrest. The story is that they plan to build a nice retail site their.

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Man, this is great news. I just finished reading it on Houston Chronicle. This is really great news, and I'm loving it. I've been to Memorial City Mall once two months ago, and it was great. They still had some areas still under construction, but my stay there was great. I like the huge brick fireplace in the middle, with a lounge area, and the NHL size hockey rink.

I really do like the area the mall is at. It reminds me of the galleria area.

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Great!!!, This can be another great urban center in Houston. It appears developers are deciding to build a little more up and compact that large strip centers. I don't know if it is planned, but they could remove some parking around the mall and build another garage. This could make the development a little more dense.

This area seems to be hitting a great revival in the retail sector.

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March 23, 2005, 11:14PM

At Memorial City, a lifestyle in development

Project will surround mall with residences, offices

By DAVID KAPLAN and NANCY SARNOFF

Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Metro-National plans to spend up to $700 million on new development along either side of its Memorial City Mall.

When it's completed, what will the firm have?

"A city," said Wayne Hays, Metro-National's president and chief operating officer.

Complementing the existing mall and health care complex will be midrise residential units, a luxury hotel, an office building, townhomes, an amphitheater, movie theater, restaurants, 350,000 square feet of retail space and pocket parks.

The project will feature multiple skywalks, connecting major buildings, stretching about a mile across the site.

Construction is expected to begin within 30 days and continue for seven years.

After spending $60 million within the last 90 days on multiple acquisitions in the vicinity, MetroNational now owns 200 contiguous acres of Memorial City in west Houston.

The proposed development will be on two tracts of land, one west of Memorial City Mall, called the "gateway tract," and the other on the east side, called the "lifestyle tract." In addition to the acquired tracts, the original land will undergo improvements.

The first project will be a six-story professional office building on the gateway tract. Then, in six months, construction will begin on the lifestyle tract for a high-end five-story to eight-story residential building with retail at street level. It will be modeled after the Aramore complex in the Buckhead area of Atlanta.

Because of the road work slated for Interstate 10, MetroNational will do its initial construction on the rear side of the two tracts. Some retail experts fear that MetroNational's new project, coupled with another large development proposed for a site nearby, could create an oversupply of retail space in the market.

Town & Country Mall, at the southeast corner of the Katy Freeway and Beltway 8, is being demolished to make way for an open-air development that will feature many of the same elements MetroNational is planning, including retail space. Houston-based Midway Cos., the developer, said it will begin site work on the 37-acre project this fall.

'Full potential'

And Memorial City Mall still has some vacancies to fill. There's also a likelihood that Lord & Taylor will close its Memorial City location, as its parent shutters stores around the country.

"What's already built out there has not reached its full potential yet," said Blake Tartt III, president of realty firm New Regional Planning. "I think they have to be very careful that they don't overbuild the market."

Others say there's lots of room for more shops and restaurants in this heavily dense area surrounded by affluent Memorial neighborhoods.

"There's plenty of room in the area for specialty retail, lifestyle retail and things like theaters and restaurants," said Edward Page of Page Partners, a real estate brokerage firm that will be leasing MetroNational's "non-mall" retail space.

Hays is bullish on Memorial City. He noted that before his company spent $200 million to renovate Memorial City Mall, the mall was getting less than $200 per square foot, and after the remodeling, it's gone north of $400.

Many local developers would shy away from creating office and hotel space because of the sluggish market.

"While others are waiting for things to turn, it gives us an opportunity to act," Hays said.

MetroNational decided to build a hotel, because there is a community need for it, partly because of the medical complex, Hays said. The company is in discussions with several major flagship hotels.

John Keeling, a hotel analyst with PKF Consulting, said upscale hotels are attracted to outdoor lifestyle centers because guests can walk outside and be surrounded by shops and restaurants.

Several restaurants are planned for the development: Denis' Seafood House and Ciro's Italian Grill, already under construction, and a Perry's Steakhouse & Grill.

'Private club feeling'

In 30 days, MetroNational will begin construction on an upscale steakhouse with "a private club feeling" on the lifestyle tract, Hays said.

MetroNational developed the concept. The company created and ran the Saltgrass Steakhouse chain until it was soldto Landry's Restaurants 2002.

A "unique grocery component," possibly multilevel with structured parking, will eventually be added, Hays said.

The 700-seat amphitheater will pose several architectural challenges, Hays said, including how to make the surrounding area most functional during the day.

Another challenge will be providing good acoustics with the amphitheater positioned near Interstate 10.

"It's smart of them to try to create a sense of place" with amenities like the amphitheater and pocket parks, said Richard Hodos, president of Madison HGCD, a New York-basedretail real estate and brokerage firm.

A sort of 'zoning'

Over the past several decades, planners have become more sensitive to what people want in a setting that combines living, shopping and entertaining, he said.

Cooper Carry, the architect for the project, is reputable and known to be sensitive to creating pleasing, human-scale pro-jects, Hodos said.

"Hopefully, by the time the project is over, the bean counters won't have chopped off too much of the original idea,"Hodos said. Drastic cost-cutting happens a lot with big projects.

MetroNational won't cut corners, Hays said, because the company is not about buying and flipping property. Rather, it aims to create "a premier lasting community," he said.

Tartt said it's important to note the amount of land Metro-National now controls in the area.

"There's no one else in Houston, Texas, that controls 200-plus acres of contiguous commercial land," he said.

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I kind of have mixed feelings about this. The location is poor - the Katy Fwy. really can't stand the additional traffic burden, and the neighborhood doesn't have sufficient connecting cross-streets to handle additional traffic either. I would much rather see mega-developments like this built downtown or in other areas with appropriate infrastructure and better traffic flow.

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Metro-National plans to spend up to $700 million on new development along either side of its Memorial City Mall.

When it's completed, what will the firm have?

"A city," said Wayne Hays, Metro-National's president and chief operating officer.

A city? What in ignorant, inbred, moronic, laughable thing to say. Really. What an idiot.

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Maybe land owners in Midtown want to much for their properties.

Also, remember that this developer is the one who owns the mall itself. It's just probably easier to work near there anyway. The community there has already seen what they did to the mall, now they'll do some more.

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March 23, 2005, 11:14PM

At Memorial City, a lifestyle in development

Project will surround mall with residences, offices

By DAVID KAPLAN and NANCY SARNOFF

I think it is reasonable to say that the Katy Freeway expansion empowered this project to happen. With the existing facility, I don't think the Memorial project would have moved foward due to chronic congestion and accessibility issues.

Let's face it, everyone doesn't want to be downtown and it is great for people to have choices. Overall, I think this is the first vindication of the Katy Freeway as an economic development tool, and I'm sure more will come.

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Maybe land owners in Midtown want to much for their properties.

Also, remember that this developer is the one who owns the mall itself.  It's just probably easier to work near there anyway.  The community there has already seen what they did to the mall, now they'll do some more.

THey also own the office buildings behind the Mall (probably 1 million + SF) as well as all the Professional Office space across Gessner. Not evey deal is suitable for downtown and quit frankly the demographics prove this point.

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Hold on..is this still in the Houston City Limits?

Anyway..back to this project. In the Chronicle, there is a pretty spiffy rendering on the front part of the Business section, so maybe y'all should go and pick up a copy to check it out.

Now, this area will REALLY be a nice retail/living corridor, especially once the Katy FW is expanded, since we'll have this project (200 acres-with possibly several thousand residential units) the Town& Country project, as well as any other developments that may be spawned due to the existance of this one (maybe a few high rise residences, mid rise residences along gessner/memorial, etc.) Don't forget the fact that Westchase is nearby, with its potential to house many residents, and If I am not mistaken, in the direct demographic area of this thing.

Hopefully, the developer will connect this new place to the mall properly (by building over a few of the parking lots, and putting in a few garages).

The thing that pisses me off slightly is the fact that the biggest and best development so far is like...15 miles west of Downtown/midtown. Oh well. Still, I like the style, and this is truly something new and revolutionary for our great city.

Does anyone smell victory?(if you know what I mean) :P

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You sure do gripe about everything.  Why the negativety.

I was going to say the same thing. Pretty much every post from LTAWACS reflects pessimism. When it is outside of Houston, it is sprawl. When it is inside Houston, it is bad still. Hey man, just be happy with what you got. I would rather choose "have" over "have not". I believe this development is pretty exciting.

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I have to agree with some that LTAWACS says. It seems like developers never get the point around here, and then they never realize why the city never gets a good rep. There are so many developments that could have changed the face of the city if they were more centralized, but people who do not appreciate urbanism would never know this.

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