A First Look at Hines' San Felipe Place
Hines’ San Felipe Place is topping out next week, and we got an exclusive hard hat tour of its progress.
Colvill’s Brad Beasley and Hines’ Mason Miller showed us around the 167k SF Class-A office building, which is scheduled to open in June. It was up to level 17, the last floor, when we stopped by this week. Mason tells us the team has spent a lot of time making San Felipe Place fit in with the neighborhood, including restricting the height to be similar to nearby structures. The gentlemen are standing in front of another aspect; the buildings’ lower floors are parking, but Zeigler Cooper designed in stone and glass so it’s not obvious.
The windows on the garage floors are double-paned glass (and some are blackout windows), which means no headlights will escape into nearby homes if tenants leave at night. It’s also leaving a wide berth for the neighborhood — the building sits 20 feet from the street and includes eight-foot sidewalks. There will be a cafe on the first floor, with a patio on Spann.
San Felipe Place has a panoramic view of Houston — we snapped this view of Downtown from the 12th floor. (From other windows we saw the Galleria, Med Center and Greenway.) Tenants on the 15th and 16th floors will have access to small corner balconies, and the ninth floor has a large terrace that spans the entire south side of the building. The upper levels have 11-foot ceilings with full glass, which is pretty rare and will create some beautifully naturally lit offices.
Leasing is going at a fast clip (it’s almost 30% spoken for already, and 15% more has proposals out), with lots of interest coming from companies whose execs live in the neighborhood. (Who doesn’t like the idea of commuting a block to work?) Brad says San Felipe Place is a great fit for all sizes of tenants — they’re getting interest ranging from 1,200 SF to full floors. Tenant build-out can begin in April or May. Brad and Mason say this project is part of general redevelopment and growth nearby, including a lot of activity just south in Upper Kirby.
