StreetLights Residential, Hunt Team Up on Houston Project

Langley. Image courtesy of StreetLights Residential

Multifamily and mixed-use developer StreetLights Residential, in partnership with Hunt Cos., has announced plans to develop its newest multifamily community, The Langley, in Houston, Texas. To be built at 1717 Bissonnet St., The Langley will merge the valet and concierge services of a five-star hotel and the craftsmanship of a private home, offering formal classical architecture resulting in a timeless building design.

The Langley will incorporate 134 apartment homes, each featuring expansive two- and three-bedroom layouts averaging almost 3,000 square feet in size. StreetLights Residential chose to include larger residences based on the expected target market for the property. The community is being designed to appeal to residents making a long-term move by “smart-sizing” from larger single-family houses to reduce expenses.

Built-in services

“Hunt Cos. has carefully monitored the growth of Houston’s high-rise market and the desire for more luxury urban properties by affluent individuals looking for the convenience of a small but still spacious home with the built-in services The Langley will provide,” Stephen Meek, StreetLights Residential senior vice president development, told Multi-Housing News. “This audience wants to be in a residential, not a commercial, neighborhood close to a world-class medical center, Houston’s arts and museum district, great restaurants and the amenities they have come to expect.”

At the same time, these residents are driven by the desire to remain in or near the Houston communities where they raised their families. According to a prepared StreetLights Residential statement, The Langley will be located in an area between Rice University and Houston’s Museum District, and inspired by the time-honored grace of adjacent neighborhoods Boulevard Oaks and Southampton.

Hunt and StreetLights Residential have earlier teamed up on luxury multifamily projects and have discussed the Bissonnet site for some time. Given the success of the McKenzie rental community in Dallas, Hunt invited StreetLights to partner on a similar, but even higher-end, Houston project.

“Hunt and StreetLights believe this is the right place for the right development at the right time,” Meek said.

The Langley will be sited south of I-69, known in Houston as the Southwest Freeway, in an area of plentiful restaurants and retail establishments and many health care facilities, among them Texas Medical Center. Nearby are Fleming Park, Museum of Fine Arts Houston, Houston Museum of Natural Science, Miller Outdoor Theatre, Holocaust Museum Houston, Children’s Museum Houston, Houston Zoo and Hermann Park Golf Course. Also south of the property are Rice University and Baylor College of Medicine.

Earlier protests

The Langley will impose substantially less impact on traffic than a permitted earlier 2013 building proposed for the site, which drew protests and lawsuits from 2007 to 2016. The new development will feature half the unit density of its predecessor, the units reduced from 232 to 134. The garage also shrunk from five to three stories.

“We are stepping up our neighborhood communication efforts with HOA and POA meetings as well as with fence-line neighbors,” Meek said. “While construction of this scale is always disruptive for a while, we will communicate with our neighbors and share our plans to make the process as tolerable as possible, including work hours, traffic control, off-site employee parking and security.”

The Langley is slated to be complete in 2025. Several months ago, StreetLights Residential broke ground on a project in Tempe, Ariz.