InterContinental Hotel Opens Next to Major Medical Center
InterContinental Houston Medical Center opened.
HOUSTON – The 21-story InterContinental Houston Medical Center has opened on Main Street, marking the return of the InterContinental brand to Houston.
Developed by Houston-based Medistar Corp., led by Monzer Hourani, the luxury hotel offers 354 rooms and sits adjacent to the Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest medical complex, which spans approximately 1,345 acres.
“We are very pleased to work with Monzer Hourani and Medistar on this landmark project to host guests from around the world,” said Elie Maalouf, Chief Executive Officer, Americas for IHG, the hotel manager, located at 6750 Main Street.
Maalouf joined local officials at the grand opening, along with visiting diplomats including Dr. Khamis Rashid Al-Kaabi, consul general of Qatar; Sultan bin Abdullah Al-Angari, consul general of Saudi Arabia; and Oscar Rodríguez Cabrera, consul general of Mexico.
Room rates at the InterContinental reflect its upscale positioning. At the time of opening, the IHG website listed rates starting around $202 for a Thursday night stay.
The hotel is part of a dense, mixed-use development by Medistar that includes the InterContinental, a multifamily residential tower and an upcoming medical office building. The site lies just south of Rice University and north of Holcombe Boulevard.
Medistar’s Monzer Hourani at a 2017 event. Photo credit: Ralph Bivins, Realty News Report.
Medistar developed the InterContinental in partnership with TRC Capital Partners. The adjacent 375-unit apartment tower, featuring micro-units under 400 square feet, was developed through a Greystar/Medistar partnership. That 35-story multifamily project, named Latitude Med Center, opened the previous year.
The next phase of the development is a medical office tower called Innovation Tower, a proposed 48-story, 1.6 million-square-foot mixed-use project that will sit adjacent to the InterContinental.
Innovation Tower is planned for 6700 Main Street, the current site of the Sure Stay Plus by Best Western hotel, which is slated for demolition to make way for the new tower.
Medistar plans to build Innovation Tower in two phases. Phase 1 will provide approximately 476,500 square feet of medical and life-science office space, with large 35,000-square-foot floorplates above a parking garage for about 1,700 vehicles. The design also includes ground-floor retail and a penthouse-level restaurant and lounge. Phase 2 will be developed in response to market demand and could include up to 410 luxury residential units or additional medical, biomedical and life-science office space. Transwestern has been retained to lease the project.
Although Medistar is widely recognized for its medical and life-science developments, the firm also has experience in land and commercial projects, such as 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.
Monzer Hourani’s portfolio also includes a medical office building constructed in San Antonio in the mid-1980s and numerous Medistar developments since then.
