Village Center Presentation – May 04, 2021
Prepared by: Richard Ray
This is a continuation of my opinion of the meeting where I commented on the meeting in general. These comments will look at details that were presented with my questions and/or views on those details.
Project Details:
Some of the slides were the same as have been posted for more than a year; however, pictures shown of the drawings of the layout of buildings have changed from what has been posted. All of the buildings except the city hall, are still represented by white blocks at different locations in the drawing. Saul said the project is made up of five areas: retail, office space, hospitality, multi-family, and the city hall. He said it will be family-friendly with pedestrian space including walking paths all through the center, it will have an open plaza, family-friendly restaurants, and a green space area including a water feature.
Based on how Saul described what would be in each of the buildings, it was not clear that anything had actually been confirmed or a contract signed for any of the buildings. The only building with any kind of image was the “City Hall” drawing with no details of the inside like a floor plan showing offices, meeting rooms, or anything at all. In the JV plan, it says the city hall will have 34,000 square feet of space. The discussion about the city hall was presented that it could not be built until construction on other buildings had started and most of the other buildings were under contract with the hotel not closing until December or early 2022 at the latest. The green space around the city hall was described as a park-like area with seating and places for children to play that could serve for outdoor activities like music performances and farmer’s markets. That space would also be used by the hotel guests and other visitors to the Village Center. A place for outdoor performances and other activities that would become a “place to go and stay”. A comment was made several times is “This will draw people to come as a tourism destination in its own right.” The retention pond by the drainage channel was described as greenspace.
Other Buildings Identified:
Wellness Center (KHJR): One of the white blocks was presented as being a “Wellness Center” that is to be a two-story 40,000 square foot building (20,000 on each floor), that building would be some sort of health-care facility with maybe primary-care doctors’ offices or another type health-care business. Saul said the Wellness Center building would be in the area east of Jones in the center of that area north of the water channel. This would be the 1st building to be constructed. The Wellness Center might include juice bar space as well. The drawing of the building looks like a two-story building with external stairs and walkways in front of the building that raises the question if there will be internal hallways, an elevator, or public restrooms in the building. At 20,000 sf per floor, it could be a 50 foot by 400-foot building or some other configuration? The person talking about this building said that the construction of this building (no present building details like floor plans or what the building would look like) would not begin until it is 80% sold or at least 5 doctors had committed and that has not been reached at this point. Other projects were talked about to give the idea that they were similar to what we could expect to be built in Village Center. Some examples were presented as examples of the buildings that KHJR has developed or are in the process of building now. Below is what I have been able to find out by researching on the internet about these projects.
Examples of Wellness Projects:
KHJR – Union Village Henderson Wellness: this building is planned to be developed next to the Henderson Hospital in Henderson, NV in the Las Vegas area. It is described as another planned piece for Union Village is a 50,000-square-foot wellness center that will feature a full health and well-being experience. “It will have everything from physical therapy and athlete training to psychological services and even some Eastern medicine components.” “There’s nothing really like it right now in the world. However, the article does not mention KHJR anywhere in the article as being involved.
KHJR – Antelope Valley MOB: This project is called Kaiser Permanente Antelope Valley Medical Office Building in Lancaster, CA and there is no mention of KHJR no mention of this company involved in any part of the project. It is listed as KPFF.
KHJR – HOF Legends Landing Wellness: This project has been renamed at least two times, the article I found on the internet says “Legends Landing evolves into Player Care Center”. The article says that the Franklin Companies, a Texas-based group of development, construction, and management companies, will be the primary operator. KHJR is not mentioned in the article, but here is what was said about the center:
Imagine a city block with assisted living, behavioral rehabilitation and surgery facilities. That’s how David Baker, president of the Pro Football Hall of Fame, describes the Player Care Center. It will house the senior and assisted-living residence of Legends Landing. “And maybe even a memorial some day to guys who would be interred here,” Baker said. Stuart Lichter, president and chairman of the board at Industrial Realty Group, said Legends Landing plans have progressed to near completion.
KHJR Summary: the above information does not prove that the person speaking at the Village Center Meeting was not telling the truth; however, none of the information supports what he said about his involvement in those projects either.
Retail Space:
During Saul’s discussion about retail space / mixed-use buildings, he pointed to multiple buildings and said they could have some retail space that could be stores, restaurants, or places like coffee shops. A total of 110,000 sf of Retail/Restaurant space would be included in the project. Then he said that the L-shaped building between apartments and city hall would be the 1st retail space building to be constructed. He suggested these would be higher-end places. Austin with New Quest spoke about how big their total space is (over 15 million sf) and that they do their projects all internally (financing, planning, development, and leasing). He said they were interested in being involved with the project if the city commits to the project. I believe he meant if the city builds a city hall at that location. Austin never said how many buildings or which buildings he would commit to building. He was asked to provide names of projects in the Houston area that his company had done that were similar to Village Center. Below are examples he spoke about, but he did say he had not been involved with a project involving a city hall.
Examples of Retail Projects:
New Quest – Antoine Town Center: This shopping center has a Kroger store as the anchor store located on 249 at Antoine. This Kroger store (65,000 sf) and shopping center has been there for many years and it has been renovated in recent years, assumed by New Quest. The additional retail space is listed as being 36,000 sf of retail space. This was not a new construction project and the retail businesses located there are not high-end businesses.
New Quest – Ai Hoa Plaza: This building is located on Bellaire Blvd. near Kirkwood. It is an old building that has been renovated that has about 135,00 sf of office and retail space. This neighborhood is mostly Asian and the businesses are for that customer base. This was not a new construction project and the retail businesses located there are not high-end businesses.
New Quest – Aliana Shops: According to the website, this project is not completed and I did not check to see the status of the project. The advertisement for this project says:
Aliana Shops will be a brand new 6,000-SF multi-tenant retail building with excellent visibility and exposure to area residents. The project is well-positioned amid the explosive residential and commercial growth in the SW Houston submarket, which is home to 7 out of 10 of the fastest-growing and top-selling master-planned communities in the United States.
Located in the northwest quadrant of Grand Parkway (Hwy 99) and Harlem Road, in Richmond, Fort Bend County, Texas – The site is adjacent to Aliana, the Houston area’s 2nd top-selling master-planned community with 4,200 residences at completion, and Harvest Green with 1,687 residences at completion. Other master-planned communities such as Long Meadow Farms, Waterside Estates, Harvest Green, and Waterside Commons are actively adding thousands of rooftops in the area.
New Quest Summary: the above information shows that 2 out of the 3 examples provided were not new construction and not similar to the Village Center project. The 3rd project is or will be a new 6,000 sf retail space, built in a very “HOT” location that will just be in addition to an existing shopping location.
Multi-family Buildings:
The 3 buildings containing 360,000 sf starting by the train tracks and following the curve of Jones towards 529 was presented as “High-end” mulita-family (apartments) that would be two stories each and I believe contain 264 units that would be a combination of 1 bedroom, 2 bedrooms, and some 3 bedrooms for young professionals. Drawings were shown of what they could look like. These apartments were described to be like none presently available in the entire area around JV and a place that will be “highly sought after”. No company was there to commit to building those buildings or to provide examples of other projects they have done. It is unknown what features would be part of those buildings except parking and walking paths.
Hotel Building:
The hotel building was presented as a “High-end Upscale” hotel that would be like an Alof or Conrad Hilton, but neither of those two companies. One slide showed 65,000 sf hospitality space. The statement was “this would not be a place that someone would just stay a night, but it would be a place people would come to stay multiple days and sit outside and have a glass of wine and enjoy themselves.” Saul said that a company was ready to build the hotel last year when the pandemic hit and the hotel industry stopped construction everywhere. No other details were provided about that building or how soon it would be built.
Other buildings:
The remaining buildings were described as mixed-use retail, office space, and great restaurants like not available now in this area; however, no names were available to be disclosed.
Public Area:
Public Area was identified as the city hall, the grounds in front of city hall, the “wet area detention pond”, and the drainage channel that feeds run-off water from that area under 290 and into the channel that is along Village Dr that flows between Wall and DE Lozier streets. It was said that there will be a “water feature” across Jones Rd from city hall that will be at where the drainage channel starts in Village Center.
Comments on the remaining issues like Traffic, Walk/Bike Path, Flooding, and Projected Tax Income from this development will be provided VC Meeting-Other-Commentary.
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