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Aris Market Square: Multifamily High-Rise At 409 Travis St.

Mab

By Mab
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H-Town Man

H-Town Man

Posted
Posted
2 minutes ago, Texasota said:

No ire dude. I just happened to notice the garage in that picture right after posting in the other thread.

 

But speaking to mollusk's point, a school is very different from an industrial operator. Why did HSPVA *just* start building downtown despite the high cost of land? Why are there any public schools in any CBDs anywhere? I'm not going to say that UHD absolutely won't sell this lot, but I would be very surprised. 

 

To mollusk, no one said contract. Shift elsewhere. Yes, there can be a school presence in downtown areas. There are no absolutes. If UHD is really wedded to this location and the land value goes up, they can ground lease it to a developer who will demo the existing building and build a multi-use high rise, with the stipulation of leasing back a portion of it to the school (which then has really great views to sell prospective students on). The point is, a 3 or 4 story classroom-only building is not going to remain at a key corner site like that if values continue to go up.

 

I know of a church in College Station that really loves their site on Church Street. But a portion of that site appraised for $50/SF. So they are going to ground lease that for a high rise with GFR, and the income stream will help them fund their ambitious new sanctuary. It's about getting what you can out of what you have, and responding to change.

 

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adr

adr

Posted
Posted (edited)

Most likely that garage isn't going anywhere.  The top two stories are individually deeded parking spots that are owned by Bayou Lofts Residents.  A parking lot company owns the contract spots on the first two stories, and a separate person owns the retail where the bail-bonds place is now.  The AIA Houston Chapter owns the retail space on the other side of the block that is integrated into the garage. Thats literally over 100 people that would need to agree to the terms of the sale.  

 

On the plus side, AIA (which just purchased the ground-floor retail across Commerce from Spaghetti Warehouse) has some really fantastic things it is going to do to the exterior of the garage to improve it's appearance.  I also doubt the Bail Bondsman will be able to stay there through another lease cycle - but that's pure speculation.    

Edited by adr
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Nate99

Nate99

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Posted

Didn't HISD already own the HSPVA block?

 

Given all of the strangeness that seems to happen around which downtown blocks got developed and which did not this go 'round, it doesn't surprise me that HISD might have focused on selling the existing HSPVA campus land and elect not to explore past whatever idea they already had for the downtown block. But that one is much different from UHD's property, there are two other undeveloped surface lot blocks still left very near the new HSPVA.

 

I could imagine someone buying UHD out and facilitating further expansion north of I-10 if something significant developed along the Bayou.  If they would also buy the jails, that would be awesome.

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H-Town Man

H-Town Man

Posted
Posted (edited)

(@ adr) Most likely not in the next 5 years, maybe 10. But when the value of the land as vacant is worth more than the value as improved with garage, plus demolition costs, plus the soft cost involved in getting everyone together, it will be gone.

 

There was a big townhome community that sold a couple years back on Post Oak Park Drive and has now been scraped, due to continued appreciation of the land values in the area. Took some work to get everyone together on it. A lot of the older folks liked their townhomes.

 

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cspwal

cspwal

Posted
Posted
17 hours ago, Nate99 said:

Didn't HISD already own the HSPVA block?

Yeah HISD has owned it since before they were HISD - it was the location of the original Houston Academy which was renamed Sam Houston High School.  http://www.houstonisd.org/domain/1875

That school moved to a new campus at Tidwell and Irvington in 1955, and the downtown building turned into an admin building until it was demolished in 1970.

 

Quote

Until the 1950s the block bordered by Austin, Capitol, Caroline, and Rusk in Downtown Houston housed the institutions that make up what is now Sam Houston High School. Houston Academy was there in the 1850s. In 1894 Central High School was built. J.R. Gonzales of the Houston Chronicle said that the school was "[d]escribed as one of the finest high schools in this part of the country" and "also attracted negative attention for its incredible cost." The school had a price tag of $80,000, $1.9 million in 2010 dollars. In March 1919 the school burned down. A new Sam Houston opened two years later.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_Houston_Math,_Science,_and_Technology_Center

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