Room With a View

HOUSTON – (Realty News Report) – The St. Regis Residences, a 37-story condominium designed by the Pickard Chilton architecture firm, will rise on the banks of Buffalo Bayou west of downtown, providing multi-million-dollar urban vistas.

Residences start at $2.4 million, which will likely be the price for a 2,000 SF condo with the least advantageous of the tower’s skyline views. Prices for large penthouses will be much more.

Vista Vantage Point – $2 Million and Up

High-rise views of Houston’s downtown skyline are legendary and have been used as representative B-roll footage for NFL games and the World Series broadcasts, as well as Chamber of Commerce-type still photos of the city.

The 93-unit St. Regis tower will be developed on a 3.8-acre site on the south side of Memorial Drive, just west of Shepherd Drive.

Satya Inc., a Houston-based development firm led by Sunny Bathija, is developing the St. Regis Residences, Houston. Satya has developed The Sophie at Bayou Bend, Giorgetti Houston, Westmore, Hyatt Place and Hyatt House Houston Medical Center and the new Tiara on the Beach condominium under development in Galveston.

Groundbreaking at the St. Regis is expected in 2025 with completion anticipated within approximately 30 months.

St. Regis is a brand is affiliated Marriott, but the Houston development will not have any hotel rooms, but St. Regis will staff and manage the condominiums.

The living spaces range from 2,000 to 5,000 SF with a limited collection of five penthouses, three duplex penthouses and two sub penthouses, spanning 4,500 to 6,000 SF.

Pickard Chilton is the design architect, while Kirksey Architecture is the Architect of Record. Dallas-based ForrestPerkins is designing the interiors.

“The St. Regis Residences Houston’s curvilinear form is inspired by the Buffalo Bayou, which defines the site on two sides,” said Adrienne Nelson, Design Principal at Pickard Chilton, a global design architecture studio. “The tower’s form echos the flow of water, with ripples along the facade that pull back to reveal terraces with unobstructed views.”

The façade maximizes transparency with floor-to-ceiling glass, while the tower top gestures westward with a sloped form. The façade recedes to create generous wrap-around balconies at the penthouse levels.

Pickard Chilton is currently involved in the RO development which is underway construction on Buffalo Speedway, north of Richmond Avenue. In downtown Houston, Pickard Chilton designed a 46-story office tower, developed at 811 Main by the Hines organization about a dozen years ago.

Douglas Elliman Development Marketing is handling exclusive sales and marketing for the St. Regis condos. Howard Lorber, Douglas Elliman’s long-time CEO in New York, resigned earlier this week. In 2019, Douglas Elliman acquired Houston’s John Daugherty Realtors, an upscale residential brokerage that had been prominent in River Oaks for decades.

High-end residential condos with luxe brand affiliations have been successful with condo flying hotel flags like Ritz-Carlton of Four Seasons, in addition to condos branded with the names of expensive cars like Aston Martin, or Bentley.

The marketing formula was very successful in The Woodlands, where the 111-unit Ritz-Carlton Residences recently broke ground. In a matter of months 70 percent of the Ritz-Carlton units have been sold, racking up about $350 million in pre-sales, developer Howard Hughes said.

Image: courtesy Shimahara Visual

THE RALPH BIVINS PROJECT PODCAST

LISTEN: THE RALPH BIVINS PROJECT with Kris Larson of Downtown Houston +

LISTEN: THE RALPH BIVINS PROJECT with Jim Carman of Howard Hughes Holdings

LISTEN: THE RALPH BIVINS PROJECT with Jeff Havsy of Moody’s Analytics

LISTEN: THE RALPH BIVINS PROJECT with Sam Scott of CommGate

LISTEN: THE RALPH BIVINS PROJECT with John S. Moody, Jr. of Moody Law Group

LISTEN: THE RALPH BIVINS PROJECT with Scott Martin of Granite Properties

LISTEN: THE RALPH BIVINS PROJECT with Robert Clay of Clay Development

LISTEN: THE RALPH BIVINS PROJECT with Alma Zavala of CommGate

LISTEN: The RALPH BIVINS PROJECT with Adam Lair of Partners Capital

LISTEN: The RALPH BIVINS PROJECT with Jake Donaldson of Method Architecture