BELLAIRE, Texas – (Realty News Report) – Bellaire Place, the former Chevron property located along Loop 610 in Bellaire, has secured Houston Methodist Hospital as an office-space anchor tenant.
Coy Davidson, senior vice president in the Houston office of Colliers International, represented Methodist Hospital in the office leasing transaction.
The redevelopment of the 30-acre Chevron property, bounded by Loop 610, South Rice Avenue and Fournace Street, has drawn substantial attention in recent weeks.
In October, SLS Properties bought the property from Chevron, which relocated all of its 900 Bellaire employees from the Bellaire campus to downtown Houston.
Chevron left behind 10-story and 6-story office buildings totaling more than 500,000 SF, plus a fitness center, cafeteria and auditorium.
Houston Methodist leased 100,812 SF of the former Chevron office space for administrative use, reports Colliers’ Davidson, who specializes in healthcare real estate and other commercial property.
Davidson reports Methodist will occupy floors 8, 9 and 10 of the 10-story building and move in during the first quarter of 2020.
SLS Properties, a Houston firm led by Danny Sheena, has retained Kirksey Architecture to handle improvements to the property. An additional parking garage is planned and other development is proposed.
Bellaire’s Loop 610 corridor has a large number of medical office space users. It is about three miles west of the Texas Medical Center, the world’s largest healthcare complex. Last year, Norvin Healthcare Properties acquired five Bellaire buildings, totaling 505,000 SF, with a tenant roster that includes Methodist, UT Physicians, Memorial Hermann, Texas Children’s Hospital, Kindred Healthcare and McGovern Clinic.
Bellaire has the potential to become a major extension of the Medical Center as medical institutions relocate administrative functions to Bellaire satellite offices and clear out more space in the Medical Center for patient care.
Bellaire Place, where Methodist will be located, is envisioned as a major mixed-use development. In addition to the two existing office buildings, there’s still plenty of undeveloped land.
Sheena, the Bellaire Place developer, compared his plan for the project to the BLVD Place mixed-use development (which has a Whole Foods, office space and restaurants) when he presented his ambitious proposal to Bellaire’s Planning & Zoning Commission earlier this summer.
Zoning restrictions would have to be altered by Bellaire City Hall, but Sheena’s SLS Properties has proposed a 300-unit mid-rise residential tower atop a new parking garage, a movie theater, a 145,000-SF mixed-use building with office space and the creation of several restaurant-suited pad sites along South Rice Avenue. This new development site is on the western edge of the Chevron parcel, which is due south of The Galleria.
Bellaire City Hall keeps a careful eye on new development within its city limits. At one time, the city’s slogan was “Bellaire – a City of Homes.”
The 30-acre parcel is a highly visible location with plenty of million-dollar homes and high-end demographics. If it were located in no-zoning Houston, the development potential would be strong.
With this development, Bellaire officials have the opportunity to build the tax base. Adding a half-billion worth of taxable real estate development would deliver a major boost to municipality’s budget. The city of Bellaire has a population of 18,000.
Aug. 6, 2019 Realty News Report Copyright 2019
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