Medistar Begins Construction on 48-Story Tower at Texas Medical Center
Rendering of the 48-story Innovation Tower to be developed on Main Street near the Texas Medical Center.
HOUSTON – Medistar Corp. will begin construction later this year on Innovation Tower, a 48-story, 1.6 million-square-foot mixed-use development on Main Street adjacent to the Texas Medical Center, according to Transwestern.
The project site, at 6700 Main Street, is currently occupied by the Sure Stay Plus by Best Western hotel, which is being demolished. The lot sits just north of Holcombe Boulevard on the west side of Main Street, near Southgate Boulevard and Texas Children’s Hospital.
Designed to serve biomedical, technology and healthcare users at the Texas Medical Center, Innovation Tower will be built in two phases. Phase 1 will deliver approximately 476,500 square feet of medical and life-science office space with 35,000-square-foot floorplates atop a parking garage that can accommodate about 1,700 vehicles. The podium will include ground-floor retail and a penthouse-level restaurant and lounge. Phase 2 will be developed based on market demand and could include either roughly 410 luxury residential high-rise units or additional medical, biomedical and life-science office space.
Transwestern’s Executive Vice President Justin Brasell and Senior Vice President Lisa Bovermann are providing healthcare leasing services for Medistar on the project. Construction is scheduled to begin at the end of the third quarter of 2019.
Medistar’s Monzer Hourani announces the preliminary plan at a 2017 event. Photo credit: Ralph Bivins, Realty News Report.
“Once completed, Innovation Tower will be the first Class AA tower in the Texas Medical Center, offering world-class amenities and creating a distinct live/work/play environment,” Brasell said.
The medical tower will sit near the new 350-room InterContinental Hotel and the recently opened 35-story Latitude Med Center apartment tower. Medistar developed the InterContinental in partnership with TRC Capital Partners. The adjacent 375-unit apartment tower, which includes micro-units under 400 square feet, was a Greystar/Medistar joint venture.
Medistar founder Monzer Hourani first revealed preliminary plans for the medical tower during a topping-out ceremony in November 2017 for the Greystar residential tower.
“The medical tower will be a substantial building with a parking garage, restaurants and shops surrounding it,” Hourani said. He noted the tower will support growing demand from the 1,345-acre Texas Medical Center—the world’s largest medical complex, home to 21 hospitals, several medical schools and more than 100,000 employees.
The Innovation Tower site is outlined in yellow in this 2017 image.
Although Medistar is best known for medical-related developments, the Houston-based company also develops land and commercial projects, including the 150-acre ParkWest Business Park in Katy.
Recent Medistar projects include PAM Rehabilitation Hospitals in Corpus Christi and Round Rock; a 60,000-square-foot medical office building in Webster; and VibraLife post-acute care facilities in Katy and El Paso.
Transwestern’s Houston healthcare team has completed 522 healthcare transactions in the past 24 months and more than 2,000 transactions over the last five years. With the addition of Innovation Tower, the team’s healthcare leasing and management portfolio includes 69 properties totaling over 5 million square feet, representing major institutions such as Memorial Hermann, Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children’s Hospital and HCP.
Innovation Tower will be built on the former site of the Sure Stay Best Western hotel on Main Street. Photo credit: Ralph Bivins, Realty News Report.
