Just in time for the holiday season, the residential floors of the Elan Heights midrise apartments (officially located at 825 Usener St.) have been packaged up in a shiny new layer of building wrap. A sign outside the construction site announces an early 2016 opening for the 327-unit complex, nestled in next to Mango Beach snowcone shop and Little Buddy gas station and convenience store on White Oak Dr. (bottom left in the aerial photo below):
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Renderings from developer Greystar provide a sense of what the building’s units and interior features will look like once the structure finishes dressing:
The complex will include a fitness center, as well as an outdoor kitchen-slash-pool area in the interior courtyard:
Also on the amenities list is a dog spa:
Other communal facilities will include an upper-level indoor-outdoor lounge and “a gaming room with retro gaming systems”.
- Previously on Swamplot: Elan Heights Shows Off Its 4 Floors of Apartment Flooding Insurance; How the Apartments Along White Oak Bayou in Woodland Heights Have Grown;Â Tenants Out, Variance Hearing Signs Up at Woodland Heights Skylane Apartments;Â This OK? Greystar Checks in with Woodland Heights Neighbors About Skylane Replacement;Â The Skylane Is Falling in Woodland Heights
Images: HAIF user hindesky (top photo); Aero Photo via urbannizer (aerial); Greystar (renderings)
I like that they thoughtfully located the pool at the bottom of that hole to complete the toilet bowl look. That’s forward thinking architecture.
*Also included are a severe lack of tenants and the offer for several months rent free
@VMel The pool is in the middle? Oh that’ll be great for sunlight. #apartmentfail
Where else would you put the pool on that site?
A rooftop Pool would have worked much better on the site. Would have been a differentiating amenity with its view of downtown as well… Missed opportunity. Instead you have an echo chamber with a water feature and 1 hr of sunlight
I must say – at least this structure is steel-framed. If I am to live in a Houston apartment building, I’d definitely want the steel frame. Was there for that fire at Dallas St. – incredibly frightening.
I’m not an engineer or architect or particularly knowledgeable about such things – but what I do know is that Houston has lots and lots of apartment fires, and it seems that the wooden structures contribute to this. Of course, using wood vs steel/metal also helps w/ initial building cost…
Friends from overseas/Latin America are always commenting on the quantity of Houston fires, and are shocked to learn that our building codes allow for wood-framed multi-family structures. Apparenlty in places like Rio it would be incredibly rare for an apartment building to go up in smoke – whereas here it seems to be an almost daily ocurrence…
Does anyone know anything about this subject? I’d be interested in knowing if its at all a topic of interest/discussion in the building community.
These comments are obviously from those who are biased toward the production of skin cancer and wrinkles through the application of direct sunlight. Those of us who are melanin-challenged, and who also prefer a slightly cooler temperature in which to pool-frolic in July and August, appreciate this complex’s setup.
swizzlestix, nonsense, we don’t have many apartment fires, it’s actually quite rare, and they DO happen all the time in in other countries, happened in Europe when I lived there just as often as here and they were all masonry buildings. Any steel or masonry building still has a lot of flammable materials including plywood, trusses, and is filled to the brim with flammable furniture, rugs, clothes, and general flammable junk.
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We use wood for a number of reasons, cost is one, wood is a sustainable building material, speed of construction, the fact that structures in the USA are not really meant to last longer than several decades, and despite popular belief, wood is indeed a very sturdy and durable construction material.
Architecturally beaten down Houstonian’s review:
No hats. Yeah!
Slightly progressive design. Wowsers!
Not another Houston wrap. Oooohhh!
Not a Heights version of an Ashby. Whoopee!
It’s 10X better than the gang invested dump that was previously there.
Check out the hood pre construction in 2011: https://www.google.com/maps/@29.7795323,-95.3814712,3a,30y,321.53h,80.08t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1swXIwDFv3bo0MkQw_aXZcRQ!2e0!5s20110301T000000!7i13312!8i6656!6m1!1e1
“We use wood for a number of reasons, cost is one, wood is a sustainable building material, speed of construction, the fact that structures in the USA are not really meant to last longer than several decades, and despite popular belief, wood is indeed a very sturdy and durable construction material.”
So….. cost.
Well, maybe 7X better than the Skylane. Have to say, though, if that gang was indeed invested in the Skylane, they can likely afford much better digs than the Elan Heights.
The Levant has the Golan Heights, Houston gets the Elan Heights. Reckon we’re ahead on that deal, at least. Perhaps…
Yes, cost. Cost IS a factor in the construction of ANY structure. Why do so many who aren’t in the industry think that developers have a bottomless pit of money to spend on these things?
Cost is not only a factor for the developer but also to the buyer. Lower overall cost means lower purchase price, means more people can afford housing, means more development and progress at a much faster pace. Look at your precious Europe, housing costs are through the roof, families live in the same house together for generations not because of desire but because of need, any construction takes years to complete, and owning your own house is just a distant dream for a young couple with children.
@swizzlestix: The Dallas St. fire happened during construction, before fire control measures were in place. Wood construction has inherent dangers, but building codes mitigate them once they are complete. Before completion, though, it’s just a pile of kindling.
@JoeSchmo, a rooftop pool would have required a massive structure to support the weight of that much water at the roof level, increasing costs to build and reducing available apartment space.
From commonsense: “the fact that structures in the USA are not really meant to last longer than several decades…”
This is especially telling/fascinating. Surely there is a long-term economic benefit to building for the future instead of the present, not to mention ecological as well? Is this an entire USA mentality for infrastructure/construction, or just a “we’re a city growing at breakneck speed” sort of thing?
It depresses me that housing is going the way of disposable appliances.
When structures are quickly, haphhazardly built, it shows. Check out most of the newly-constructed townhomes in our fair city – rust sliding down faux-California stucco from the Chinese foundry-made iron railings, mold quickly growing on aforementioned stucco (hello, humid climate!) badly-placed windows popping out… In comparison, the older structures, shabby as they might be from years of neglect (and also made of wood!) are, for the most part, rehabitable.
Would it be worth rehabing one of these newly-build townhomes down the road? It seems much of the material used in them would not even be recycled…
Ugh.
@swizzlestix: Buildings have to make economic sense. It’s a waste of money to build something to last 200 years if the owner will want to replace it with something new when the mortgage is paid off. That money could be better spent elsewhere.
@Chris – I was hoping that you sent the google maps link that you did, that is one of my favorite ones ever. Discovered it by accident a couple years back and almost died of laughter.
1) Seeing the dog spa makes me think (hope?) that they are still planning to build a dog park that will be open to the neighborhood.
2) Does putting the pool in the middle mean it will be protected from flood waters like the ones that swamped the building in May, linked in my signature? I’m not an engineer, but assume that if there’s a way for rain to drain out of the hole in the middle, that channel could be backed up if the bayou rises high enough to flood the first floor of parking?