Houston’s Tallest Apartment Opens

HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – Brava, the new 46-story multifamily community in downtown Houston, is the tallest residential tower in Houston.

Hines, along with investment partners Cresset-Diversified QOZ Fund and Levy Family Partners, celebrated the grand opening of Brava last week.

The Brava, 414 Milam at Preston, was built in a Qualified Opportunity Zone which allows investors to be excluded from paying federal capital gains tax if they hold the new project for a significant amount of time.

The Brava site was formerly the Houston Chronicle parking garage, a rough concrete structure that had been in dire need of a power washing for three or four decades.

Hines bought the Houston Chronicle property, a block and a half, about seven years ago for more than $50 million, as first reported in an exclusive story by Realty News Report. Hines built the 47-story Texas Tower office building, 845 Texas Avenue, on the full block. The half-block where the Chronicle parking garage once stood is where the 373-unit Brava apartments were built.

Hines Tower Pays Homage to Newspapering

With the Brava’s interiors, Hines paid homage to the newspaper with artwork and design elements. Concrete columns in the Brava lobby are laced with newspaper headlines over the last century. Newspaper images were transformed into lobby artwork by Barcelona artist Sergio Albiac. Brava’s fitness center is called “Sports Lounge” in a nod to journalists who worked on the Chronicle Sports section.

On a recent tour of the Brava’s interiors, Chris Rector, managing director and chief operating officer for Hines’ Southwest Region, noted numerous artistic nods to newspapers – a shrinking industry that bleeds losses of readership and suffers ad revenues declines as digital media emerges.

People starting moving into Brava in February and it’s about 44 percent leased now. Construction work has been continuing and Rector hopes to have it wrapped up by September or October.

Rector is optimistic about leasing. The Houston apartment market is strong. Plus, Brava is catty-cornered from Market Square Park, which has emerged as a hot magnet for downtown residential in recent years, Rector said. Other high-rise apartment buildings, including Hines’ Aris Market Square and the 40-story Market Square Tower are located within a block or two.

The 430,000-SF Brava tower has residences ranging from 657 SF to 2,927 SF. Monthly rents for range from $1,814 to $6,325, except for the penthouses.

The penthouses are located on the 45^thand 46^thfloor. The best Brava penthouse rents for only $13,727 per month.

The tower, located at the corner of Milam and Preston, falls short of being the tallest in Texas.

Austin has the corner on high-rise residential – or the highest rises – with the new towers that have been erected in its downtown. The Independent, a 58-story condominium that Austin folks call “Jenga Tower” is the tallest. When it was completed in 2019, it surpassed the 56-story Austonian, a Congress Avenue project designed by Houston’s Ziegler Cooper Architects.

Austin also has the Sixth and Guadalupe, a 66-story residential and office hybrid nearing completion. And Intracorp is developing a 65-story hotel and condo tower near the Austin convention center.

Other Texas high-rises are underway, including the conversion of an office building in downtown Dallas that may reshuffle the hierarchy of Texas residential.

Image Courtesy of Munoz + Albin Architecture & Planning

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