News

M-K-T in Houston’s Heights Signs First Office Tenant

By Jeff Jeffrey | Houston Business Journal

September 3, 2019

A closely watched mixed-use development repurposing more than 200,000 square feet of industrial buildings in Houston’s Heights neighborhood has signed its first office tenant.

Houston-based accounting firm Miller Grossbard Advisors has agreed to lease 14,000 square feet of Class A office space in the development known as M-K-T, according to a news release from JLL (NYSE: JLL).

Miller Grossbard Advisors has more than 50 employees in Houston. The firm was founded 28 years ago and specializes in advising clients on tax, accounting and business advisory issues. The firm is currently located at 2204 Louisiana St. in Midtown. The company will relocate in the second quarter of 2020 to the mixed-use development, JLL said.

M-K-T is a joint venture of Houston-based firms Triten Real Estate Partners and Radom Capital and is currently under construction. The project is located just north of Interstate 10 at the northeast corner of Shepherd Drive and 6th Street. JLL’s Russell Hodges, Bubba Harkins and Jenny Mueller are leasing M-K-T’s office space on behalf of the joint venture.

Office rents in Houston's inner-Loop neighborhoods cost an average of $31.69 per square foot during the second quarter of 2019, with Class A spaces averaging $34.61 per square foot, according to CBRE (NYSE: CBRE).

M-K-T will offer office users modern structures with 10- to 20-foot exposed ceilings that provide the ability to install internal stairwells leading to mezzanine spaces, JLL said. Other features include stained concrete floors, exposed beams, private outdoor spaces, and large windows and skylights.

Tenants and guests will have access to a wide array of lifestyle amenities including approximately 100,000 square feet of creative office space and 100,000 square feet of chef-driven restaurants, first-to-market retailers and studio fitness concepts. In all, the development will have space for up to 30 restaurant, retail, and health and fitness businesses, including over 1,000 feet of frontage along the Heights Hike and Bike trail.

The Houston Business Journal reported in May that M-K-T had leased space for two restaurants, which are expected to open in late summer or early fall 2020.

The restaurants include California-based Mendocino Farms Sandwich Market, which opened its first Houston location in Rice Village this summer. Mendocino Farms Sandwich Market is planning additional locations in Uptown Park, where it's scheduled to open in October, and at 609 Main downtown, where it will open in November, according to its website.

Also moving into M-K-T is Houston-based Honeychild's Sweet Creams, which will open its first brick-and-mortar location in the mixed-use development.

M-K-T was designed by acclaimed Austin-based architect Michael Hsu, who recently opened an office in Houston. Houston-based Method Architecture is the architect of record, and SWA Group is the landscape architect. Boston-based Long Wharf Capital LLC is financing the project.

M-K-T is just one of several mixed-use developments underway in the Heights. For instance, Radom also developed Heights Mercantile, a 40,000-square-foot retail development at 7th Street between Heights Boulevard and Yale Street. That project delivered in 2017 and won a 2018 Landmark Award from the Houston Business Journal.

Last month, the city of Houston issued building permits for a new $2.5 million mixed-use development known as Heights Forum. That project, which will be about a mile north of M-K-T at 1324 N. Shepherd Drive, is slated to bring nearly 25,000 square feet of retail and restaurant space to one of Houston’s fastest-growing areas.

Less than a mile up the road from the Heights Forum project, San Antonio-based grocery store H-E-B opened a new multilevel location at 2300 N. Shepherd in January. The Katz family behind Katz's Deli and Bar bought a 0.9-acre site at 2200 N. Shepherd Drive for a future development, as well.

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2019/09/03/massive-mixed-use-development-in-houston-s-heights