- Vigavi West Ten Breaks Ground on Spec Crane-Ready Industrial Building at West Ten Industrial Park in Katy [Realty News Report]
- Renovations for Downtown Office Tower 800 Bell on Hold [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Micro-Unit Condo Project Ivy Lofts To Relaunch as Condo Hotels Concept [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Under-Construction Condo Project Parc at Midtown Currently 67% Sold [HBJ]
- Harris, Fort Bend Counties Rank Among Top U.S. Counties for Incoming Investments [HBJ]
- $6M Federal Grant To Rebuild Ike-Damaged 65th and 69th Streets in Galveston [Galveston County Daily News ($)]
- Most Houston Metro Riders Happy with Service, Finds TransitCenter Study [The Urban Edge]
- Buc-ee’s Sues Choke Canyon Travel Center Over Animal Logo [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of Lynn Park: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Re: Ivy Lofts,
You mean tiny apartments in a “transitioning” neighborhood, with pretty much nothing for 6 blocks in any direction, 10 blocks from the nearest light rail stop, and priced at $500/s.f. didn’t sell? Go figure.
Ivy Lofts replaces ridiculous model with even sillier model.
Articles of near downtown mirco condos succeeding & failing on the same day. Is the difference the +200 sq ft of the midtown one or is it being on the other side of 59?
@HeyHeyHouston, they didn’t break out what portion of the 1-bd micro-condo’s have sold in midtown so absent any data I’d assume only a few. Micro condo’s in Houston is still definitely not a thing. Surely there’s an affordability index someone has developed to determine what cities may be appropriate for such developments, but we’re not that expensive yet.
Re: Ivy Lofts, Maybe Millennials aren’t flocking to these units because the Houston marketplace presents a great many choices in where you can put your real estate dollars. The Northeastern and California cities don’t offer the broad range of options Houston does. Plus, given current economic headwinds, I’d expect to see some of the new construction apartments inside the loop start to have falling rents, which will attract more young people.
Re Ivy Lofts: I thought the whole point was to attract foreign investors with closets no one could possibly live in, since no one lives in the other high end investment condos? Maybe they should make them little indoor tulip farms.
@HeyHeyHouston,
Both, plus being $150/sf cheaper.
Re: Ivy Lofts. Try as they might, they’re never gonna make a silk purse out of that sow’s ear.
I bet Houston has a WNBA bball team before the Ivy lofts are ever built.
Nice concept, wrong location. With the number of units they were building, they could have moved the project to an A+ prime location and only charged an extra 1% per unit.
How long before someone starts investigating Ivy Lofts people for weird financial dealings and someone goes to jail? I honestly can’t think of any other reason someone would come up with such a dumb project and have it fail so dramatically at this scale.
Erection, I know of a development that failed to get off the ground even after the developer and agents conspired to create a false demand by enlisting people to sign contracts on the cheaper units. These people had no intention of ever living there. When it went south it was the exact same spin. It’s like a new business getting friends to sit their cars in the parking lot. It suddenly looks like the place to be.
Mirco condos will never be a thing when they are built in a neighborhood where you can get a townhome for a similar price.