Adaptive Reuse in Houston — market context
Houston’s downtown office vacancy has been climbing as energy-sector tenant footprints contracted and hybrid work patterns held. The conversion funnel that Dallas is running at scale — 26% vacancy, structural inventory, legislative tailwinds — is forming behind it in Houston. SB 840 and the proposed SB 2477 apply statewide: residential in commercial zones without rezoning, conversions exempt from impact fees, public hearings, parking minimums, and traffic studies. The Houston historic preservation framework is less developed than Dallas’s, but the federal 20% historic rehabilitation tax credit applies to qualified buildings regardless of metro.
ANDRES’s $950M adaptive reuse portfolio was built in Dallas, but the institutional knowledge is portable. The same team that delivered Mosaic, Corrigan Tower, Gables Republic, and Dallas Power & Light is the team running ANDRES Houston operations under Cody Whittle. Houston-side, ANDRES owns and operates the 1905 Commercial Bank Building at 917 Franklin — a six-story historic office structure — alongside the 10700 North Freeway 10-story office building. The track record in Houston is currently weighted toward multifamily and interiors; the adaptive reuse pipeline is forming, and ANDRES is the firm with the documented capability to deliver it when it does.
