Multifamily in Houston — market context
Houston permitted more multifamily units than any Texas metro in 2023. The driver is structural — population growth, corporate relocations, and a cost-of-living advantage over coastal markets. The complication is permitting. Houston is not a single jurisdiction. City of Houston permitting, Harris County oversight, Fort Bend County, Montgomery County, and ETJ regulations vary block by block. Subcontractor demand outpaces supply across most of the metro, and the same trade partners get pulled between dozens of active job sites. Retention is the single biggest operational risk in this market.
Cody Whittle joined ANDRES in 2006 as a project engineer fresh from Texas A&M Construction Science. He worked through every role on the way to VP of Operations in June 2022 — project engineer, APM, PM, senior PM, VP. The person running ANDRES Houston has personally managed projects at every scale the company delivers. Parkside Residences at Discovery Green — 43 stories, 309 units, 711,000 SF, delivered 2023 for High Street Residential and TCC, designed by Ziegler Cooper — sits in the same Houston downtown that most multifamily firms avoid going vertical in. Bowen River Oaks ran 25 stories with 260 apartments including 10 penthouse units. 2811 Kirby, Polk Street Residences, Buffalo Heights — the Houston portfolio is mid-rise through high-rise across the metro.
ANDRES is 100% employee-owned under ESOP since 2017. In a market where superintendents get recruited every quarter, that ownership structure is not a perk — it’s a retention mechanism. The superintendent on a Houston high-rise has equity in the project’s outcome. That alignment compounds across multi-year delivery: lower turnover, fewer punch-list items, faster closeout. The Houston team is permanent. The relationships with inspectors, jurisdictions, and utility providers are permanent. When a project crosses from City of Houston permitting into an ETJ, the team already knows the process.
