Worthing Goes to Westchase, Energy Corridor
The Worthing Cos has two multifamily projects gearing up in West Houston. You’ve heard about its Central Park community, and we’ve learned it’s breaking ground on a Westchase property in two weeks. (Alert all squirrels: this is a notice to vacate, any remaining nuts will be seized.)
EVP Michael McGwier tells us the Westchase community will sit on five acres between Millennium One office tower and Houston First Methodist Church. Worthing will close on the site in two weeks and immediately break ground on a 262-unit property. It has direct access to Beltway 8 and will start leasing next January and fully deliver in June 2015. That’s about the same time The Heights at Park Row, Worthing’s 342-unit community in Central Park, will complete. (And just like that, they've got twins.) That property sits on nine acres in the Energy Corridor, and Michael says it’s leaving one acre of wetland and will build an accessway to Addicks Trail.
Michael says he’s been working on both sites for a long time, and was pleasantly surprised when lots of other developments were announced nearby. Since Worthing chose the Westchase tract, Phillips 66 and Millennium Tower Two kicked off nearby. And when he first started working on the Energy Corridor site 18 months ago, he didn’t know what user was eying another tract in the park. (Worthing was ecstatic when it turned out to be MD Anderson.) ARA and Cushman & Wakefield repped Worthing in its site selections.
The Westchase property will look similar to this. Worthing loves its courtyards, which are turned to the outside of the property whenever possible. (Both of these projects are wrap buildings with parking in the middle.) Michael says the Westchase community will have four, and Heights at Park Row will feature six. Each courtyard will be different, but all will have WiFi and will aim to be comfortable places for residents to hang out. Michael tells us he’s considering two infill sites in Houston now, and he’d love to do a traditional suburban garden-style project here soon. He’s based in Atlanta but tells us he loves working here, even though Houston is the only city in the US where he loses sites to office guys. (Hey, nowhere’s perfect.)
