200K SF Mass Timber Office Building Planned For West Houston
Hicks Ventures plans to break ground this year on a 200K SF Class-A mass timber office building in what would be the city's first privately developed mass timber construction.
Hicks is in the process of securing financing for Framework @ Block 10, a six-story building on a 2.7-acre tract at 10496 Old Katy Road in West Houston, across Interstate 10 from CityCentre, according to Hicks Ventures’ website.
Plans call for a six-story parking garage, a pocket preserve and nature park, balcony terraces and ground-floor retail. The building is designed to generate 20% to 25% of its average daily power usage on-site, according to Hicks Ventures.
Hicks Ventures principal Patrick Hicks told the Houston Chronicle he wants the building to be “ultra-efficient," calling it the "tip of the spear on the next generation of buildings.”
The design should allow the building to achieve net-zero carbon emissions, meaning it would remove as much carbon from the atmosphere as it emits.
True net-zero would require tenants to monitor and reduce their energy consumption, which Hicks told the Chronicle is built into the structure's design. Energy-saving technologies would include LED lighting, sensory systems to help monitor power usage and an underground rainwater cistern to flush the building’s toilets with rainwater, the article states.
Mass timber construction is a solid wood framing system that is made from pieces of lumber secured with glue, dowels or nails. It is gaining popularity in Texas, with 84 projects in design and another 50 under construction or already built, according to industry group WoodWorks.
Mass timber is attractive because of its inherent sustainability, but also because of a relatively fast construction timeline and recruitment advantages that help it draw tenants faster than traditional office projects, Bisnow previously reported.
“We have plenty of steel and glass boxes (in Houston). I wanted this to be unique. I wanted it to look cool,” Hicks told the Chronicle.
Developers say Framework @ Block 10 will be the first mass timber office project in Houston and the first to be privately built. The Howard Hughes Corp. is developing a 49K SF mass timber office building as part of a 925-acre mixed-use town center in Bridgeland, but that project does not yet have a start date and is in pre-leasing, the Chronicle reported.
There are several non-office mass timber projects in the Houston area. San Jacinto College Anderson-Ball Classroom Building in Pasadena recently won an award from WoodWorks — Wood Products Council for wood in schools. Kirksey Architecture is designing a replacement Hanszen College Wing at Rice University using mass timber construction.
Gensler is designing Hicks Ventures' new project. The company plans to break ground on Framework @ Block 10 later this year, possibly before securing pre-leasing as it is a speculative project, the Chronicle reported.
