[Urbannizer]

Now a 48-story, mixed-use tower. Will become the tallest high-rise in the Texas Medical Center.

48-story mixed-use tower to rise in Texas Medical Center

Houston-based Medistar Corp. is expected to begin construction on its next tower in the Texas Medical Center area around the end of the third quarter of 2019, according to a press release from Houston-based Transwestern.

Transwestern Executive Vice President Justin Brasell and Senior Vice President Lisa Bovermann are handling health care leasing for the project, dubbed Innovation Tower, per the release.

Plans for the medical tower first emerged in November 2017. However, as expected, much has changed since then.

Phase 1 of Innovation Tower will contain 476,500 square feet of medical and life science office space above a 1,700-vehicle parking garage, per the release. There will also be retail space and a penthouse-level restaurant and lounge. The building is outside the bounds of the Texas Medical Center, which restricts for-profit businesses from operating in nonprofit hospital complexes, Medistar CEO Monzer Hourani told the Houston Business Journal in 2017.

The development of Innovation Tower's second phase will depend on market demands. Phase 2 could include 410 luxury high-rise residential units or additional medical, biomedical and life science office space, per the Transwestern release.

Eventually, the tower is expected to be 48 stories and 1.6 million square feet, per the release.

Innovation Tower will be built at 6700 Main St., the site of a SureStay Plus Hotel by Best Western that Medistar bought around 2006 or so, Hourani told HBJ previously. The tower will be connected via a skybridge to Medistar's joint hotel-multifamily development across the street. The Intercontinental Houston Medical Center at 6750 Main St. opened earlier this year, and the attached Greystar apartment development, dubbed Latitude Med Center, at 1850 Old Main St. welcomed its first residents last summer.

“Once completed, Innovation Tower will be the first Class AA tower in the Texas Medical Center offering world-class building amenities to create a distinct live/work/play environment,” Transwestern’s Brasell said in the release. “Innovation Tower will be an iconic building and great complement to the Texas Medical Center."