The multifamily sector is coming off an explosion of development, and the oil markets have made financing extremely hard to come by. But Stanmore Partners still sees opportunities—it just closed on a site and plans to break ground on a community this year.

Stanmore was drawn to Baytown, says ARA’s Tom Dosch, who repped the firm in site acquisition. It’s got great demographics -- especially high-paying job growth from the expansion of refineries and the Port -- and very limited supply. (Stanmore was not interested in competing with every other developer in town in West Houston or Midtown/Montrose.) There are few sites zoned for multifamily (Tom says he only found one or two), and almost nothing has been built recently. The pipeline is meager; only one other property is under construction, and no others have been proposed.

Stanmore’s site is 13.5 acres at Eastpoint and East Chase, right in a developing pocket north of I-10 and east of 45. In the past few years, there’s been a lot of single-family built, plus some schools (there’s a new high school just up the road from Stanmore’s site), a slew of hotels, restaurants and a few commercial/retail projects. The capital markets have closed off thanks to oil prices (in fact, this site was previously under contract with another developer, which couldn’t lock in financing), but that’s no problem; Stanmore’s got local private investors. It’s finalizing design and estimates it’ll break ground in a few months.