Target housing

I know the name of this project is the Sawyer Heights Lofts, but given its location, I'll be thinking of them as the Target Lofts.

Houston-based Martin Fein Interests Ltd. is building a 326-unit, four-story project known as Sawyer Heights Lofts, two miles west of downtown. The complex at 2424 Spring St. replaces two older industrial buildings that were recently torn down on the five-acre tract.

The apartments are going up next to the Sawyer Heights Village Shopping Center under development by Houston-based Property Commerce. The Target-anchored center has become a new landmark on the heavily traveled Katy Freeway.

Sawyer Height Lofts will range in size from 683 square feet to 1,344 square feet. The interiors will feature simulated wood flooring in common areas and carpet in the bedrooms. Kitchens will have granite countertops, custom cabinets and upgraded plumbing fixtures.

The complex will have an exercise room, game room, library, party room, conference room and pool.

Link via Houstonist. Given the proximity of a major interstate, a Target parking lot, and a street that features a lot of eighteen-wheelers, I'd say the most important aspect of the design here will be soundproofing.

(On the plus side, you're only three blocks away from the Giant Presidential Heads. I'm thinking a loft with a view of the Adickes studio should cost a little more. It'd be worth a premium to me, if I were in the market for a quasi-urban domicile.)

Anyway. They're a little concerned about what a couple hundred housing units will do to traffic in the area at the Houston Architecture Info Forum. I don't know that I'm worried about the traffic effect - and I say that as someone who regularly uses the Taylor/Sawyer interchange at I-10 - but I will say that widening Taylor between the Target and Washington Avenue to two full lanes would be a big help. You can take Taylor all the way to Memorial for a pretty nifty back route into downtown when I-10 is a parking lot, but it doesn't take much traffic to back this up, especially at the lights at Center and Washington. I've got to think that this is on the drawing board somewhere. For the sake of the future residents of the Target Lofts, who will surely discover this alternate route, I hope it is.

Posted by Charles Kuffner on September 27, 2006 to Elsewhere in Houston | TrackBack