CityCentre: Urban setting in West Houston By Rusty Graham

Memorial Examiner
March 20, 2009

CityCentre isn't trying to be all things to all people, really, just the right things for the right people - those who want it all, together in one place.

The 37-acre mixed-use development rising from the site of the former Town and Country Mall combines retail, hospitality, office, residential and entertainment into a single West Houston destination.

"Mixed-use is a term that gets thrown around a lot," said Jonathon Brinsden, executive vice president of Midway Companies, owner and developer of CityCentre. "This one has all the food groups."

Midway is choosing its sustenance carefully, though, looking not only for businesses that complement one another but can sustain themselves on several levels.

"Mixed-use offers incredible synergies across (businesss) units," said Brinsden.

For instance: the 245-room Hotel Sorella will connect by skybridge to the Norris Conference Center, which has a back entrance on the same level as the entrance to Studio Movie Grill.

So, a company could put on a seminar, have its people stay in the hotel, use the conference center for large sessions, then break out into smaller groups at Studio Movie Grill, which is available for private functions during the day and can cater.

The choice of the theater, then, is important, Brinsden said. "That wouldn't work with something like a 24-screen megaplex," he said.

Unity will also be evident in something as seemingly small as valet parking. Whether a customer valets at the retail side on Queenbury, in front of the hotel or at Studio Movie Grill, their car can be retrieved at any valet location.

But if synergies are the lifeline of CityCentre, then retail is its anchor - almost literally.

Retail will dominate the streetscape. Lofts undulate atop retail. Restaurants, offices and even Hotel Sorella rise above ground-level retail.

by design

As a development company, Midway isn't "product-specfic," said Brinsden. It prefers to find "great pieces of real estate and figuring out what to do with them."

Tucked into the southeast corner of I-10 and Beltway 8, Town and Country Mall had been in decline before Midway bought it. Three anchor stores had closed, leaving 45 interior stores and Neiman Marcus, which owned its space and had a loyal customer base, Brinsden said.

Midway was able to consolidate the agreements from the 45 smaller tenants. Neiman's closed its store and sold to Midway in May 2004, and in January 2005 the mall was demolished.

"It was kind of like a dog chasing a car," said Brinden. "It's fun, but what do you do with it when you catch it?"

Townhomes were the "base case," Brinsden said, but research showed there also was demand for office, retail, hotel and living space.

The property is located in 77024, one of the wealthiest ZIP codes in Texas. Midway estimates that nearly 500,000 cars pass by the site every day, and that the site can be reached by two million people within 20 minutes.

A team from Midway visited 27 projects in 17 cities looking at mixed-use developments, summing up what they liked, didn't like, what worked, what didn't work. No detail was too small.

"We were down to measuring sidewalks," said Brinsden, for helping to determine a project's scale.

They found that projects based around a theme were prone to dating themselves. They found that mix and scale were vital in making people feel comfortable.

Brinsden said that Midway had three goals for CityCentre:

- Develop something of the highest quality
- Develop something good for the community
- Focus on firsts - bringing new things to Houston

Progress

Midway hired Gensler Architects and set out to accomplish its goals, bound only by the site's physical confines. Three parking garages held over from the mall are also integrated into the site's design.

Centered around a plaza on the hotel's east side, CityCentre is designed for the pedestrian.

Town and Country Boulevard now extends from Queensbury north through the development to Town and Country Lane on the other side. The street will remain open to public use but will be privately maintained for control and security purposes, Brinsden said.

With esplanades on its south and north sides, Town and Country goes from head-in parking on two sides to head-in parking on one side in front of the plaza to parallel parking on the north side.

It's part of the scale and urban feel Midway has tried to bring to the development, Brinsden said.

The north-south street that fronts Lifetime Athletic Center and leads into a parking garage is narrow and has parallel parking on a single side, giving it a particularly urban feel.

He said that the architecutre and finishes were chosen to give CityCentre a modern, contemporary feel that evokes the past but will be relevant in the future.

Steel and glass are prominent in the buildings's designs, and most are finished with brick and limestone, cut into modules that are similar to brick but longer.

Most brick is "Old Chicago," brick reclaimed from demolished buildings as Chicago architecture modernized during the late 19th and 20th centuries.

Proportion and scale are maintained through building height and spacing.

"(The buildings) are all close cousins," said Brinsden. "They're not identical, but they go together well."

Midway expects a daytime population of around 1,000 and an on-site residential population of nearly 1,500 when 650 residential units are filled.

"Layers" of terraces will put people on different levels, adding to visual interest. For example, second-floor restaurants will have terraces overlooking the streetscape, as will lofts. The lofts also have a second-floor "cocktail" pool where residents can gather and socialize.

Breezeways are open-ended to avoid a closed-in feeling, said Brinsden. Even corridors in the buildings have glass at the ends to "open" up space.

Carmel Builders is developing the Brownstones at CityCentre, 35 upscale townhomes on the east side of the site, while Simmons Vedder is building out 370 multi-family units on property acquired from Midway, Domain at CityCentre..

CityCentre will offer 250 residential lofts for rent and 22 penthouses for lease or purchase atop Hotel Sorella.

The lofts aren't even pre-leasing yet, but marketing director Connie Carey said inquiries keep coming, including one from a group of 40 or so friends who want to live in the same place.

Hotel Sorella and many restaurants and retail outlets are scheduled to open this summer, Brinsden said, but a grand opening in being planned for the fall.

Lifetime Athletic has been open for months, while Studio Movie Grill opened last week. Much of the office space is leased and occupied.

A planned office building in front of Hotel Sorella and facing Beltway 8 will be built later.