A ANATOMY OF A DEAL
FROST TOWER For Harwood International founder and CEO Gabriel Barbier-Mueller, part of the goal for many of his Uptown projects has been to incorporate certain elements that he missed from European cities, like Rome—think patios, terraces, landscaped gardens, and picturesque places to both work and enjoy a glass of wine. His latest development, the 22-story, 167,251-square-foot Frost Tower, is the seventh building in Barbier-Mueller’s Harwood District, situated on 17 city blocks nearly encased on the north and west sides by the Katy Trail in between Victory Park and The Crescent. Frost Bank, a longtime client of Harwood’s, will occupy 57,558 square feet of office space in the building. Kansas City-based law firm Polsinelli has signed for six floors (77,000 square feet), and will move its office from Saint Ann Court—another Harwood International property—when Frost
Tower is complete. At press time, the building was 92 percent leased. Barbier-Mueller says about one-third of his Harwood district’s 22 phases have been completed. (They include Azure, a 31-story condo tower, and Bleu Ciel, a 33-story condo tower.) Frost Tower, which will open in 2015, has special meaning for the developer. “The Frost Tower project was designed by our architectural firm HDF— Harwood Design Factory,” he says. “It’s the first building we designed 100 percent in-house.”
KEY PLAYERS DEVELOPER: Harwood International ARCHITECT: HDF LLC INTERIOR DESIGN: HDF LLC GENERAL CONTRACTOR: HCMS, Manhattan Construction Co. ENGINEERS: L.A. Fuess Partners Inc., TTG
1920 MCKINNEY A parcel of land along McKinney Avenue at Harwood Street will soon be home to a 12-story, 150,000-square-foot office and retail tower. KDC and Invesco Real Estate broke ground on 1920 McKinney last September, planning for six floors of office space, a six-story parking garage, and 8,500 square feet of ground-level retail space. Construction will wrap up in early 2016, with McCarthy serving as the general contractor. Mike McWay, Texas region president, says he’s seeing developers incorporate more amenities into their projects. “The Uptown market typically provides for retail, restaurants, fitness centers, outdoor spaces, and adjacencies to outdoor venues like Klyde Warren Park, which was another project McCarthy built.” BOKA Powell is serving the project’s architect, JLL is leasing the building’s office space, and The Retail Connection is marketing ground-floor retail. Colin Fitzgibbons, vice president at KDC, has been involved with
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the project since its inception in early 2013. The lead office tenant has been secured but remains undisclosed. Specific amenities are still being ironed out. “This is great, great real estate,” he says. “It’s two minutes from Klyde Warren Park, it’s truly walkable to all the major amenities that make Uptown so great—The Crescent, The Ritz, other restaurants—it’s on the trolley, and it has great access. Especially with the Uptown office market being as hot as it is right now, it’s just really well-positioned to deliver something that doesn’t really exist today in the market, which is new construction for the midsize tenants out there—your 10,000- or 15,000-square-foot tenants.”
KEY PLAYERS DEVELOPER: KDC, Invesco ARCHITECT: BOKA Powell GENERAL CONTRACTOR: McCarthy ENGINEERS: Schmidt & Stacy
W I N T E R 2014