Midway Kicks Off Houston Office Project

Houston-based Midway has broken ground on CITYCENTRE Six, a 320,000-square-foot office development in Houston. Partners include architect of record Kirksey and design firm Munoz + Albin Architecture and Planning, along with OJB Landscape Architecture. The building is scheduled to come online in 2026.

The project is part of CITYCENTRE, a 2 million-square-foot, mixed-use development in West Houston, featuring five already-completed office buildings, 1,120 luxury residences and a 255-key hotel. Plans also call for CITYCENTRE Seven, an adjacent, office development that will encompass 119,000 square feet.

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When complete, CITYCENTRE Six will include 308,000 square feet of office space and 12,000 square feet of ground-floor retail and dining options. Dow, a global materials science company, will be the anchor tenant at the 19-story building and will occupy 208,000 square feet for its Houston Dow Center.

The property will feature a nine-level podium parking structure, multiple private terraces and a new half-acre urban plaza at the tower’s entrance. The plaza will be shared with Marathon Oil’s new headquarters, a 525,000-square-foot building developed by Hines and owned by Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corp.

The tower is rising at 800 Town and Country Blvd., close to a host of dining and retail options and 14 miles from downtown Houston. George Bush Intercontinental Airport is 27 miles from the site, while 12012 Wickchester, a 109,473-square-foot office building that recently changed hands, is within 3 miles.

Midway’s new venture

Last May, Midway Holdings LP and Parkway Property Investments LLC entered into a definitive agreement to form a new real estate investment, operations and management firm. The new company now has a total of 45 million square feet of assets under management, including the under-development projects.

In October, the firm acquired two Houston office campuses, dubbed Post Oak Central and CityWestPlace. The pair of properties measure more than 3 million square feet and are 10 miles apart.

Houston’s struggling office sector

According to a recent CommercialEdge office report, Houston had almost 2 million square feet of office space under construction as of last month. The market registered the second-largest vacancy rate among the top metros, clocking in at 24.3 percent, well above the 18 percent national average. Houston was surpassed only by Detroit (25.4 percent).

Last April, Hicks Ventures revealed plans for Framework @ Block 10, Houston’s first office project utilizing mass timber and the first building in the state to aim for net zero energy operational carbon. The 200,000-square-foot office development is scheduled for completion by the end of the year.