WILL GREENWAY PLAZA SALE MEAN NEW GREENWAY PLAZA TOWERS? 
The 10 buildings and 52 acres that make up Greenway Plaza have been sold by Crescent Real Estate to Atlanta firm Cousins Properties for $1.1 billion. (The 3-city deal also gives Cousins a 40-story office tower in Fort Worth.) For now, reports the Houston Chronicle, it doesn’t appear that the change in ownership will change the property — though Cousins doesn’t seem to have ruled anything out: “Though there are no immediate plans for development, the . . . complex could house an additional 2 million square feet worth of office buildings, [Cousins CEO Larry] Gellerstedt said. The future development sites are parking structures that could be replaced by new towers.” [Houston Chronicle ($); previously on Swamplot] Photo: Crescent Real Estate
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Pickard Chilton had designed a 40 story building for Crescent several years ago for Greenway Plaza that never came to fruition–too bad it was a cool building, it’s actually still on their Website–Greenway is a superb location, it seems like a no brainer to build more office space–time will tell if this CEO is all hat and no cattle–his statement is PR Boilerplate–it means nothing –blah we may do this blah we may do that blah market conditions blah blah–zzzzz–call me when you have the financing for the new buildings lined up and a shovel in the ground –until then –blah
I would hope that the sale at least means that GWP will get the comprehensive facelift that Crescent wasn’t able to provide. Although the newer buildings (9, 10, 11, 12) were at least in competitive shape, some of the older ones such as 1 and 2 were Class C buildings being represented as Class A. Same goes for the tunnel level.
Good luck to the two million more square feet worth of workers that will have to drive in and out of that place every day. Thank goodness we haven’t done anything to improve transit access to the area.
Good lord, the traffic out of that place is already mad! Can it get worse? They’re going to have to address it in any future development, or they will chase away potential tenants.
The more office space the better IMO.
The city really shot itself in the foot with that whole Lakeside Church deal. They leased and then sold the whole thing for peanuts, then lost any hope of ever getting one thin dime of tax dollars out of that site.
It would have made more financial sense (via future tax revenue) to simply give the building away to anyone willing to invest heavily in improving the site.
I wish the Rockets still played at the Summit, I miss going to the games. I have only been to Toyota center once and it just didnt impress me
Bernard is absolutely correct. That whole deal just went through with nobody thinking. If you’re the city and you’re in a different selling position, wherein you are tied to the property in perpetuity through taxable revenue, why on earth would you consider the offer of someone who takes away that taxable revenue until ALL OTHER avenues have been explored? I would take $1 on that property, with the idea that it will pay big boy taxes over a lowball church offer.
“Good luck to the two million more square feet worth of workers that will have to drive in and out of that place every day. Thank goodness we haven’t done anything to improve transit access to the area.”
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I couldn’t agree more. I know that traffic and crazy cut-through traffic is the price of living in the city, but in the absence of zoning, the city has to at least try to mitigate the impact of development by investing the occasional dollar in infrastructure.
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Just one idea: take out the huge medians (which are unkempt and not at all decorative) and redo the left-turn lanes around Weslayan and Richmond so that more cars can pack in without obstructing traffic in the main lanes.
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DEDICATED RIGHT TURN ONLY LANE at Richmond eastbound at Weslayan, so that all of those folks trying to get to the 59 can do so easily.
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Traffic enforcement. Seriously, I never see any cops, except the ones in the yellow vests who are hired to help obstruct traffic so that cars can get out of Lakewood and Greenway Plaza.
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COH, start spending some of your new tax $$$ !
“The city really shot itself in the foot with that whole Lakeside Church deal.
No kidding, but what else is new. The only thing our city council and mayors are good for is giving away tax payer dollars.