The city’s top chefs are eyeing restaurant spaces that will be culinary anchors of a new office tower under construction near the Galleria.
The building is the 22-story BBVA Compass Plaza, an office tower that will be completed next year.
Chef John Sheely, owner of Houston’s Mockingbird Bistro, has leased 4,000 square feet in the building, which is located at 2200 Post Oak Boulevard, according to a report in CultureMap.com.
And Hugo Ortega, the James Beard Award finalist who formed Hugo’s restaurant, is reportedly locked up on an 8,000 square foot eatery in the same tower, according to people in the real estate community. A spokeswoman for the Ortega organization declined to comment, saying it was premature to discuss any new deal that Hugo may have planned.
The BBVA Compass building will sit on a 6.5-acre parcel just north of the Galleria, between Westheimer and San Felipe.
The developers will develop a hotel and another office tower on the remaining land next to the new building. The office project is being developed by Stream Realty Partners and Redstone Cos. in a 50/50 joint venture.
The BBVA Compass Plaza tower will open next spring. The 312,000-square-foot office building is over 60 percent leased currently with the namesake bank leasing the seven top floors and a ground-floor lobby space.