More Montrose developement
Luxury apartments likely to replace Montrose highrise in prime location
Nov 18, 2013 | 1:23 pm
A Montrose Boulevard highrise that formerly housed Scott Gertner's SkyBar could soon be demolished for luxury apartments. Houston-based development company Hanover Co., known for building luxury high-rises across the country, currently has the 3400 Montrose site under contract, according to a report in the Houston Business Journal.
The 10-story, 96,849-square-foot building has been vacant since 2010 when SkyBar and other tenants moved out. Longtime Montrose residents may also remember the location as it housed Cody's, a rooftop jazz bar that occupied the space in the 1980s.
Hanover has recently built upscale mid-rise apartment complexes in Rice Village and on West Gray at Waugh. The company plans to break round in early 2014 on construction of a 29-story luxury apartment tower in the Galleria area at San Felipe and Post Oak Blvd. The tower, dubbed Hanover Post Oak, will sit on 1.2 acres of the 21-acre mixed-use development site of Wulfe & Co.'s BLVD Place, which will include a Whole Foods Market, restaurants, shops, and office space.
The 3400 Montrose property, with an estimated value of $1.9 million, seems ripe to be redeveloped into luxury apartments in the prime location at Hawthorne street. Asbestos removal and demolition of the highrise could add another $1 million before construction could take place. Hanover Co. representatives did not immediately return phone calls about the development.
"I would expect a major component of the project will be luxury apartments," Ray Lawrence, director of economic development with the Montrose District, told HBJ. "It’s an older building, and I understand that it does have asbestos that would have to be abated. It’s really an obsolete building; there’s no way they could remodel."