going up

Twin tower retail and residential high-rises break ground in Upper Kirby

Houston’s newest mixed-use development broke ground this week, as Nashville-based Southern Land Company (SLC) launched its latest project, a new luxury mixed-use destination in Houston's prestigious Upper Kirby district.

Fashioned as two buildings on one property, 2811 Kirby Drive and The Lily River Oaks sit between West Alabama Street and Westheimer Road. In press materials, Southern describes the project as "a design-forward, complementary development that will further enhance one of Houston's most distinguished areas."

Two towers anchor the project’s 953,000 square feet, rising from a shared parking podium that will feature approximately 15,000 square feet of ground-level restaurant space.

The Lily River Oaks is a 38-story apartment tower featuring 331 rental residences, including 18 penthouses. Future residents will enjoy amenities such as a rooftop indoor and outdoor spaces and a seventh-floor garden deck. The seventh floor will also include a residential spa, guest suites, and a fitness center available to both residents and office tenants.

Meanwhile, 2811 Kirby, the project’s 10-story tower, offers four stories of Class AA office space totaling approximately 107,000 square feet. Stream Realty Partners, the firm partnering with SLC on the project, is leading leasing efforts for the office space.

"After meticulous planning and preparation, we are excited to break ground on a one-of-a-kind mixed-use community," said Tim Downey, SLC founder and CEO, in a release. "Today marks an important milestone in our mission to deliver a landmark destination where locals and visitors can live, work, and gather, and that exemplifies SLC’s hallmark standard of extraordinary placemaking."

2811 Kirby and The Lily River Oaks mark the latest expansion of SLC's growing Texas portfolio, which includes Tucker Hill, a single-family community in McKinney; Lunaroya, a single-family community in Dripping Springs; and Deco, a 27-story luxury mixed-use community in downtown Fort Worth. They’ve also developed and sold mixed-use and multifamily properties in Plano, Dallas, Keller, and Allen.

Solomon Cordwell Buenz (SCB) is the new development’s architect and interior designer; Kimley-Horn helms its civil engineering; and DeSimone Consulting Engineering leads the structural engineering. SLC is the leading landscape architecture and horticulture for the project.

Construction is slated for completion in 2028.

Tower of 2811 Kirby and The Lily River Oaks

Photo courtesy SLC

2811 Kirby and The Lily River Oaks is a multiuse space including offices, restaurants and retail, and luxury living.

high-rises construction

millennial magnet

Houston stars among 30 hottest U.S. metros for millennial homebuyers

Photo by Jose Losada on Unsplash

Houston is a millennial magnet.

Houston and its surrounding cities have already proved to be magnets for millennials, and now a new national housing report has established the city as one of the 15 hottest destinations for millennials, whose local homeownership rate has nearly doubled since 2018.

The number of millennials who own their homes in Houston has grown from 227,365 to 418,698 households over the last five years (84.2 percent), according to a new housing analysis from RentCafe.

The study compared homeowner growth rates versus renter growth rates of millennials — based on Pew Research Center's definition as individuals born between 1981 and 1996 — across 107 U.S. metro areas from 2018 to 2023.

Houston ranked No. 29 in the overall list of U.S. metros that have seen the highest increase in millennial homeowners since 2018. About 49 percent of all Houston-area millennials own their homes, with the remaining 51 percent renting, the report found.

Houston also ranked 22nd in the national list of cities with the biggest growth rates among millennial-age renters. The number of millennial renter households jumped from 397,410 to 439,371 in five years, a 10.6 percent hike.

About 5.3 million millennials have become homeowners over the last five years nationwide, RentCafe's analysts said, which represents a massive 74 percent increase in millennial-owned households. The growth rate of renters was much lower in comparison.

"At the same time, the number of millennial renters in the U.S. rose by a modest 5 percent, adding approximately 600,000 households," RentCafe said. "This brings the total number of millennial homeowner households to 12.4 million, close to the 12.6 million millennial renter households."

While the rate of millennial homeowners is on the rise, the same can't be said for Gen Zers. Less than 15 percent of all Gen Z households in Houston own their homes, while the vast majority are renters, a separate RentCafe study found.

Elsewhere across the state, Austin (No. 7) and San Antonio (No. 10) ranked among the top 10 U.S. cities with the biggest growth rates among millennial homeowners.

The top 10 U.S. metros with the highest gains in millennial homeowners are:

No. 1 – North Port, Florida
No. 2 – Lakeland, Florida
No. 3 – Jacksonville, Florida
No. 4 – Stockton, California
No. 5 – Oxnard, California
No. 6 – Palm Bay, Florida
No. 7 – Austin, Texas
No. 8 – Tuscon, Arizona
No. 9 – Deltona, Florida
No. 10 – San Antonio, Texas

rentcafe study real estate housing report millennials houston

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millennial magnet

Houston stars among 30 hottest U.S. metros for millennial homebuyers