A reader passes onto Swamplot an unconfirmed report that a groundbreaking ceremony for the Sovereign, the 21-story apartment tower from the developers trying to kickstart Regent Square that Swamplot reported on back in April, is scheduled for July 11th. That date’s not too far off from the June window predicted in a Houston Business Journal story earlier this month. The site is a cleared lot on West Dallas St. between Rosine and Rochow, where a surviving portion of the Allen House Apartments was recently demolished.
Is the Sovereign the first piece of GID Development’s long-stalled Regent Square development? It fits within the massive North Montrose mixed-use project’s eastern boundary, but the 4-year-old drawings for Regent Square show only low-rise apartments on that spot. On the other hand, the 2 projects are listed separately on the Boston company’s website. And the proposed 290-unit highrise appears to sport more modern look in its renderings than the images of brick-caked structures still floating around in old Regent Square drawings.
Here’s a view of the site from the 1000 block of Rochow, looking toward West Dallas:
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The America Tower is on the right; the Royalton highrise at the far left is to the north, on Allen Parkway.
- Regent Square high-rise gets new lease on life [Houston Business Journal]
- The Sovereign and Regent Square [GID Development]
- Previously on Swamplot: Highrise Replacing Allen House Remnant? The Latest Rumblings Around Regent Square
- Regent Square coverage [Swamplot]
Rendering: GID Development. Photo: T. Patrick O.
Wow, I guess Whole Foods will offer daily delivery service too.
Beautiful. I love it.
I agree Dillon. Let’s go Houston. Starting to build up and not out.If this acutally happens, I will be both happy and impressed.
Great more apartments in North Montrose, as if the 2 new ones on West Dallas and and on West Gray and Waugh weren’t bad enough already. Density akin to the Heights here we come (ugh)…
If you don’t like density in the core of the city then move to katy. I live in the area and I welcome the develpment. More projects like this inside the loop are inevitable in a booming city like Houston.
Problem is, with density Houston style everybody brings their car(s).
Yes, welcome to the real world, HOUSTON. Wake up! And see what other cities are doing. . .
Has anyone been to Atlanta, Dallas, or even Austin, lately?? These are all over the place! It adds to density, but also foot traffic, charm and more shopping/dining/entertainment/nightlife options.
You’re right – if you don’t like it, move to the burbs.
Now all we need is to put the dang spiderweb of power lines underground. Geez, talk about ruining downtown views from every direction. Buy a $500K townhome and have your downtown view directly obstructed by the tangled power lines all around you. It’s so ugly. And the views would be so much nicer without them.
Obviously, it would be a huge undertaking to bury them, like other cities. But can’t we have a starting point at least with new construction? They’re strung all around like someone slung them up in a sloppy way and stapled them to the poles with no care for ambience. No wonder the hurricanes rip them apart.
And, please, for the 100th time, can someone please start a movement to light up our downtown skyline at night? There’s hardly any ornamental lighting and the Houston skyline vanishes when the sun goes down. Forbes Traveler rated ours one of the top-10 skylines of the world and at night, you can’t even see it.
Every other great city does it. Why doesn’t Houston?? No wonder nobody goes downtown after dark.
I’ll bet GID Development will light this sucker up!
Ding ding, thank you Mark.
Density is fine as long as it’s Not In My Back Yard. Hey, that’s catchy, someone should come up with an acronym for that.
in all seriousness, though, there is a transit issue with density that’s related to the character of Houston’s approach to the car. Density in other cities works well because transit in other city cores works well. Houston is….working on it. The fear a lot of people have with large vertical density is that assumption that transit follows the plow, so to speak. In Houston, that can be a riskier gamble than elsewhere.
Awesome! Can’t wait for this complex and Regent Square to be built.
I agree with Dillon, especially about the power lines. The rat’s nest overhead reminds me of pictures of cities in the 1890s. I realize that, because of the cost, there’s not much support here for burying them. However, I think that the city would be much better off in the long term (economically as well as aesthetically) if we did that. There’s a perception nationally that we are vulnerable. An example of that is that when I called my auto insurer about homeowner’s insurance, they told me that all of their possible underwriters refused because they thought Houston would “blow away in the next big storm”.
I would totally support a bond measure to start burying some of the power lines around here. Starting in my neighborhood!
The power line issue isn’t a unique one to us. After some major outages in the DC area after a hurricane, there was a big discussion of this and basically, it costs money. (My old neighborhood there had as much of a rat’s nest as the Heights does.)
the density is inevitable. Look at the housing market here now – a lot of people are willing to pay a lot of money to live close in. There’s no sign of that changing; in fact, the sprawl-until-you-hit-San-Antonio approach that has kept suppy up to demand and kept prices moderate just isn’t sustainable in the long term (think 50-75 years) because there is a limit to how much time & money people will spend on transportation.
Now it would be nice if we thought ahead an built out transit in advance of the density, but it’s unlikey; it’s not human nature & it’s especially not Texan nature.
#Dillon: I agree with you,Guido & Anon. I and lots of other people in Houston have wanted buried power lines but the utility company always complains about the cost. That is a moot point.Float a bond issue for a few billion and the ensuing infrastructure jobs would be a boon to the local economy.Plus,the end reuslt: way LESS visual pollution. I abhor the power lines strung along like string on a stick.Very child like. Plus, the vulnerability from hurricanes,storms, winds, falling trees is significant. It’ll probably never happen though. The Sovereign Tower is going to be beautiful when completed.
VERY not bad…