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    City Changer

    New convention hotel brings talk of a sweetheart deal, a Texas-shaped pool & anurban look

    Tyler Rudick
    Dec 17, 2012 | 11:37 am
    • Construction on the new Marriott Marquis is slated to begin in 2014 and has aprojected completion date of spring 2016.
      Rendering courtesy of Morris Architects
    • Designed by Houston firm Morris Architects, the hotel will build off the successof Discover Green and concentrate on fostering public space.
      Rendering courtesy of Morris Architects
    • Oh yeah . . . and the Marriott will have a pool shaped like Texas.
      Rendering courtesy of Morris Architects
    • A public plaza will mark the hotel entrance, breaking from the traditional darkvehicle drop-off zones of yore.
      Rendering courtesy of Morris Architects
    • In the next decade, developers hope the project will transform the area into oneof the nation's top convention destinations.
      Rendering courtesy of Morris Architects

    In a effort to create more hotel rooms within walking distance of the George R. Brown Convention Center, Houston city council is blessing a deal to build a new Marriott Marquis on Avenida de las Americas between Rusk and Walker.

    Situated across from Discovery Green, the $266-million hotel will be connected via skyway to the convention facility, bringing 1,000 rooms to an area long short on lodging space.

    Officials with the RIDA Development Corporation and city government group Houston First Corporation — the entities leading the project — say that the building will produce more than 1,800 construction jobs, as crews break ground in 2014. When the hotel opens in spring 2016, another 700 jobs are expected to be added to the local hospitality industry.

    Directly north of the GRB between Rusk and Capital, Houston First will build a parking garage with 1,800 spaces to accommodate guests and downtown visitors.

    According to company vice president of acquisition Luke Charlton, RIDA proposed one of the lowest municipal incentive packages of the 11 bidders on the hotel development. City council members approved the following for RIDA:

       
    • $27 million in grant money from the city
    •  
    • $31.7 million land donation from Houston First, which will purchase the site from the city
    •  
    • city rebates for sales, hotel, property and beverage taxes for the next 20 years (not including METRO and ISD taxes)
    •  
    • state rebates for sales and hotel taxes for next decade
    •  
    • RIDA will lease garage space from Houston First for roughly $1.2 million a year
    •  
    • RIDA will own the building

    "While Houston is the fourth largest city in the country, it doesn't have the reputation as a convention destination," Charlton says. "With the Marriott, though, we hope to get meeting planners to see the city in a new light. Building on the work Houston First has done throughout the GRB area like Discovery Green, we plan to truly elevate the city into the national convention market."

     Different times

    Critics of the Marriott package frown upon the idea of handing over $58.7 in cash and land incentives to RIDA — noting that, a decade ago, the city funded a GRB expansion, the Hilton-Americas and Discovery Green using $316 million in public bonds without offering tens of millions in direct grants to developers.

    Houston First CEO of hotels Peter McStravick tells CultureMap that the city corporation is in a different place than it was in the early 2000s.

    "While are current financials are strong, we simply don't have the same collateral as we did ten years ago," McStravick says. "All of our bond leverage is still locked up in the Hilton-era projects, which is why we needed a developer to front a significant portion of the funding."

    The total Marriot project is projected to cost roughly $324 million, according to McStravick. Of that, RIDA will pay the $266 million to build the hotel with the city balancing out the rest with its $58.7 in cash and land incentives.

     Preliminary designs

    Leading the design of the new building is Houston firm Morris Architects, which will work with both RIDA and Marriott throughout 2013 to devise a welcoming environment that meshes with the surrounding cityscape.

    "This can't just be another 1,000 rooms. The project needs to transform the area and feeling around the convention center," architect Doug Childers says. "This is a very open urban hotel, rather than a closed-off island."

     

    "We've decided to design the hotel from the ground level up, making sure the busy public area will connect with the park both visually and literally." 

    As such, an open public plaza across from Discovery Green will mark the hotel entrance rather than a dark vehicle drop-off zone.

    "We've decided to design the hotel from the ground level up, making sure the busy public area will connect with the park both visually and literally. The building will have activity on all four corners with a sports bar, coffee shop, restaurant and possibly a local retail space."

    As an added bonus, future Marriott guests will get to experience firsthand what is sure to be one of the city's kitschiest landmarks to date . . . a gigantic swimming pool in the shape of Texas.

    unspecified
    news/real-estate

    millennial movers

    More millennials bought homes in Houston than any other city in 2024

    Amber Heckler
    Jul 14, 2025 | 5:15 pm
    mortgage rates with pen and calculator
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    Houston is turning into a haven for millennial homebuyers, a new SmartAsset housing study has found. Nearly 62,000 millennials purchased homes in the Bayou City in 2024.

    The report, "Where Millennials Are Buying Homes – 2025 Study," analyzed mortgage origination data across 41 of the largest U.S. metros, ranking them based on the percentage of local people aged 25-44 who purchased a home in 2024. As a note, the study only observed conventional mortgages and not FHA, USDA, or VA loans.

    The findings show more millennials bought homes in Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands than in any other U.S. metro last year, totaling 61,826 originated mortgages.

    "This was the highest raw number of new Millennial homeowners nationwide, outranking metros like New York City and Los Angeles, which have much larger total populations," the report's author wrote.

    For additional context, that's nearly 6,100 more mortgages than Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, which had the second-highest number of millennial home purchases nationwide in 2024.

    The median property value of a Houston-area home purchased by a millennial in 2024 came out to $345,000, and the median income of a millennial homeowner was $124,000, according to the report.

    Despite the vast number of millennials that bought homes in Houston last year, it only accounted for 2.85 percent of all local residents within the 25-44 age bracket. Furthermore, Houston-Pasadena-The Woodlands placed 27th in the report's ranking of U.S. metro areas with the highest percentage of millennials who purchased homes in 2024.

    The No. 1-ranking metro was Raleigh-Cary, North Carolina with 4.5 percent of local millennials securing a mortgage last year. However, that percentage only represented 19,735 mortgages originated in 2024.

    SmartAsset said U.S. metros with a high rate of millennial homebuyers may show desirability within the area's job market, housing market, and its local economy.

    "In some places, 1 in every 25 residents between the ages of 25 and 44 purchased a home with a conventional mortgage just in 2024 alone," the study said. "In other major metros, less than 1 in 100 Millennial-aged residents last year. This disparity can cause divergent implications for local infrastructure, politics, and business demand among different metros."

    Here's how many mortgages that were secured by millennials in Texas' other major metros in 2024:

    • Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington – 55,732 mortgages
    • Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos – 27,196 mortgages
    • San Antonio-New Braunfels – 26,337 mortgages
    houstonsmartassetreportshousing marketreal estatemortgage
    news/real-estate
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