BELLAIRE, Texas – (Realty News Report) – Bellaire Place, the former Chevron campus along Loop 610 in Bellaire, has secured Houston Methodist Hospital as an anchor tenant for office space.
Coy Davidson, senior vice president in Colliers International’s Houston office, represented Houston Methodist in the lease transaction.
The redevelopment of the 30-acre Chevron site, bounded by Loop 610, South Rice Avenue and Fournace Street, has attracted strong attention in recent weeks as plans for reuse move forward.
In October, SLS Properties acquired the parcel from Chevron after the company relocated about 900 employees from the Bellaire campus to its downtown Houston offices.
The site includes two office buildings—a 10-story and a 6-story structure—totaling more than 500,000 square feet, along with amenities such as a fitness center, cafeteria and auditorium.
Houston Methodist will lease 100,812 square feet of the former Chevron office space for administrative functions, according to Colliers’ Davidson, who specializes in healthcare real estate and commercial property transactions.
Davidson says Houston Methodist will occupy floors 8, 9 and 10 of the 10-story building and expects to move in during the first quarter of 2020.
SLS Properties, led by developer Danny Sheena, has engaged Kirksey Architecture to design improvements for the site. Plans include an additional parking garage and other new development elements.
Bellaire’s Loop 610 corridor already hosts a large concentration of medical office users. The area sits roughly three miles west of the Texas Medical Center, the nation’s largest healthcare complex. Last year, Norvin Healthcare Properties acquired five Bellaire buildings totaling 505,000 square feet with tenants that include Methodist, UT Physicians, Memorial Hermann, Texas Children’s Hospital, Kindred Healthcare and McGovern Clinic.
As medical institutions shift administrative functions to satellite offices in Bellaire, the city could become a significant extension of the Medical Center, freeing space in the core campus for clinical use.
Bellaire Place, where Houston Methodist will be based, is being envisioned as a major mixed-use development. Beyond the two existing office buildings, the property still contains substantial undeveloped land suitable for new construction.
Developer Danny Sheena compared his vision for Bellaire Place to BLVD Place—a mixed-use complex that includes retail, office space and restaurants—when he presented the project to Bellaire’s Planning & Zoning Commission earlier in the year.
SLS Properties has proposed a range of uses that would require zoning adjustments by Bellaire City Hall. The concept includes a 300-unit mid-rise residential tower above a new parking garage, a movie theater, a 145,000-square-foot mixed-use building with office space, and several restaurant-ready pad sites along South Rice Avenue. The proposed development sits on the western edge of the former Chevron parcel, just south of The Galleria.
Bellaire closely monitors development inside its municipal limits; historically the city has emphasized its residential character with the slogan “Bellaire – a City of Homes.”
The 30-acre site occupies a prominent location surrounded by high-value homes and strong household demographics. If the property were in unzoned Houston, its redevelopment potential would be even greater, but within Bellaire the city government controls land-use changes.
For Bellaire officials, a thoughtfully executed redevelopment offers the chance to broaden the tax base significantly. Adding hundreds of millions in taxable development would provide a substantial boost to the city’s budget; Bellaire’s population is roughly 18,000.
Aug. 6, 2019 Realty News Report Copyright 2019
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