Brays Crossing is a remodeling project that was once property owned by NASA contractors. The apartments are single room dorm like housing. It is $425-$475 to rent one of the apartments. Mostly poor and elderly people inhabit the affordable housing. New Hope buildings are built with all equity and no debt. The property will cost $14 million in total. The property was previously a violent part of the city and expensive for the city to purchase. They just had their grand opening last Thursday and are currently 50% leased. They have a library, community kitchen and business center at Brays Crossing. They even have an outdoor sport court that can be used for soccer. They do not provide any type of counseling for the residents. The residents cannot be sex offenders or arsonists; they can't have been convicted of various assaults. Also, residents cannot have meth making in their past. New Hope is involved with CHODO, community housing organizational development. The lease term of residents there is only 6 months and they play it month by month there. They have never evicted someone for not paying rent and only evict people as a last resort. Most of the residents at Brays Crossing are referrals from other programs or walk-ins.
New Hope: Canal Street Apartments
Canal Street Apartments opened 5 years ago. The building is transparent on both levels. It was a $6.1 million development. Canal Street Apartments are 100% leased and are affordable housing. There are 133 apartments there. They financed it with the help of the city, state, and private donors. All doors there are wheelchair accessible. The furniture was inexpensive, sturdy, and stylish. 8000 units in Houston are needed as affordable housing, but only 1200 exist.CityCentre Houston
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Houston CityCentre tour and information was given by Brandon Houston the Director of Development for Midway. He started off in management consulting and did that for 5 years after graduating from Texas A&M in marketing and graduating with an MBA from Rice. Mr. Houston has been working with Midway for 5 1/2 years. He personally has helped to develop almost everything with the exception of hotels. Midway started in Dallas and goes through all components of projects. The office in Houston opened in 1983. They now focus mainly on development. Midway is the main entity or the general partner in all properties. The IRR at CityCentre is in the high teens and twenties. They don't build to sell they look for annual income opportunities at Midway. Traditionally they were in industrial park development.
The CityCentre was their first mix-use project. The land used to be Town & Country Mall. They bought the mall for a steal at $30 million. It is a total of 38 acres. They leveled the mall while keeping the 3 parking garages. CityCentre is a mixed use urban development. The first large tenant was LifeTime Athletics. There are no public dollars used on the property. Midway (Companies) does not like to use city money for anything because they want to be able to do things like close streets when they want to have concerts, etc. They will be using TIRZ money later to have a pedestrian walkway along the street. Midway's limited partnership carved out streets, sidewalks, the hotel, and other parcels and sold them each separately to different entities.
Midway has a management group that runs all the properties. Currently only one office building is on hold of being constructed because of the economy. They make sure that office buildings are at least 50% leased before being constructed in order to meet debt service. They are able to charge above the market rent on office space because people love the location. 77024 is one of the richest areas in Texas and $900,000 is the median income of residents. That is why Midway believes that retail will survive even if it is currently hurting a little.
The hotel on site at the CityCentre is a business traveler hotel and the cost is $180 to $200 per night. They originally thought that people would only be willing to pay much less than this. CityCenter is in the major energy corridor of Texas. I thought the super car club was awesome. It's $50,000 to join and then extra to rent the cars.
There is 425,000 sq ft of retail, 450,000 sq ft of office space, 244 hotel rooms, 22 condos, and 525 residential units. The cost is $22 per sq ft for office space and $35 per sq ft for retail. The retail space is 60% leased, one office is 100% leased, and the other office building is 60% leased. Most tenants are small businesses. There are over 10 restaurants currently at CityCentre and they are doing very well. There were some lessons learned by Midway in doing this project. First they would have probably asked for TIRZ money upfront. They also would have built to a better LEED Certification. Although they aren't certified they are up to LEED qualification standards. Midway wants to do green development in the future when the cost is lower.
Mr. Houston gave great advice when he said that in the business you have to be creative like they were with one of their restaurants when they became equity holders in order to get them to come. He said it's best to go in with an objective and have in mind that it's a give and take process.
The various residences are The Brownstones at CITYCENTRE, The Domain Apartments, The Lofts CITYCENTRE, and Vista Maravilla-Penthouse.
The only hotel is Hotel Sorella.
The restaurants are CityCentre are below.
- Bistro Alex
- BRIO Tuscan Grille
- Café Rosé
- Chipotle
- Cyclone Anaya's COMING SOON!
- Eddie V's Prime Seafood
- Jamba Juice
- LifeCafé
- Monnalisa Bar
- Potbelly COMING SOON!
- RA Sushi
- Ruggles Green COMING SOON!
- Straits Restaurant
- Yard House
Amegy is the only bank currently available at the CityCentre.
Other activities that are available include LifeTime Athletics, LifeSpa Salon, the Houston Motor Club, Sculptures by Design, and Studio Movie Grill.
Norris Conference Centers also has space there.
Midway had completed or are undergoing projects on about 32 million sq feet of properties in 22 states and northern Mexico. They do mixed-use places, office and industrial facilities, corporate structures, manufacturing facilities, multi-family, master-planned residential communities and more.
More information can be found about CityCentre at http://www.citycentrehouston.com/ and midwaycompanies.com
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