Two, 22-floor, high-rise condos each including 800 units and an 1190-car parking garage. The condo square footage is 940,000 SF and each floor is 21,363 SF. The two condominium structures sit on top of the garage podium which is seven levels with a decorative architectural enclosure.

Aug. 18, 2005, 12:25AM
Towering ambitions

Plans for area east of Hermann Park rely on Houstonians' desire to live closer in

By NANCY SARNOFF
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

Developers are proposing two new projects less than a mile apart that will add luxury residential and hotel towers to the area.

While the projects differ considerably, both developers said growth in the Texas Medical Center, amenities associated with Hermann Park and a budding desire by Houstonians to live close in will help sell their projects. In just a few years, both developments could add nearly 1,000 residential units to this area.

Raleigh, N.C.-based Phillips Development & Realty is joining with Wood Partners of Atlanta to build twin glass and steel residential towers called Mosaic on nearly 5 acres on the southeast corner of Almeda and Hermann.

The first building will have 393 apartments, and the second tower will have the same number of for-sale condominiums. Shops are planned on the ground floor.

"It's an ambitious project," said William McWhorter, a market analyst with CDS Market Research in Houston. "Although there can be little doubt that the Texas Medical Center is undergoing robust growth and that downtown is poised to recover substantially over the next couple of years, filling 800 luxury units in any location could be quite a challenge."

More units will be added to the area when developer Will Perry develops a 9-acre piece of land across Texas 288 on North MacGregor that will include two hotels with more than 200 condominium units and hotel rooms, as well as a 450,000-square-foot medical office building and 40,000 square feet of shops and restaurants.

Perry, the son of Perry Homes founder Bob Perry, said construction on the condo-hotels won't begin for at least a year, as he has just begun seeking hoteliers to partner with on the $200 million project.

The medical office building, however, could break ground within nine months.

Like his father, who helped pioneer development in neighborhoods like Midtown and the Fourth Ward, Will Perry wants to "change the shape and facade of the east side of 288."

His plans for the project, called the Gateway Med Center, include tree-lined walkways, waterfalls and a park honoring famous visitors and icons of the Texas Medical Center.

"A mixed-use facility will allow patients visiting the med center to shop there, eat there all within walking distance to family," Perry said.

Both developers also hope to attract residents who want to live near universities, the golf course at Hermann Park and Houston's Museum District.

Shrinking the commute

"I'm already having people call me from suburbia that want to be close in because of the price of gas," said Gerald Womack of Womack Development & Investment Realtors, who's active in the Almeda corridor.

Nationally, there's an influx of people moving back into urban cores, said Donald Phillips, managing director of Phillips Development & Realty, which is developing Mosaic.

The company is building a sales center at the site and plans to begin construction on the rental tower in October. It hopes to begin construction six months later on the condominium tower. Both will be 29 stories of residential units on top of five stories of parking. Units will average 986 square feet, the majority having one or two bedrooms. The smallest units will be 678 square feet.

"We tend to go smaller," Phillips said. "We're not marketing these toward burgeoning families." The cheapest condominiums will start in the $180,000s, and preliminary rents have been set at $1.97 per square foot.

There will be penthouse units of more than 3,000 square feet and sell for $800,000 to $1 million.

Amenities in the Mosaic will include a yoga room, a rooftop pool, an outdoor terrace with a fire pit, a viewing deck and an area for entertaining with a bar and catering kitchen.

"A lot of people are more interested in having a more amenity-rich environment than having a couple hundred extra feet in their living room," Phillips said. "It's less about a place to live as it is a way to live."

Wulfe & Co. is leasing the 22,500-square-feet of retail space in the project.

"It's a significant amount of retail that will be added to a neighborhood that is currently underserved from a retail perspective," said Jeff Kaplan, a broker with Wulfe & Co. who specializes in urban projects.

An Atlanta-based architecture firm, the Preston Partnership, is designing the towers.

By NANCY SARNOFF
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle