Corpus Christi Caller Times Caller.com - Downtown Corpus Christi to offer lofts

Marketplace \| Services \| Contact Us \| Community \| Arts & Entertainment \| Local Guides

Tuesday, August 3, 1999

Downtown Corpus Christi to offer lofts
Weber Building home to 10 lofts on two upper floors, martini bar on first floor
By Andrea Jares
Caller-Times

When Dr. Keith Rose moved to Corpus Christi a year ago, the physician walked into a real estate agent's office and asked to be shown any of the available lofts downtown.
   There weren't any available.
   "I said, 'Yeah, you're joking, right?' " Rose recalls.
   She wasn't.
   So he got an idea. He and his friends would build their own.
   "I went looking for a building that day," he said. "I found one three months later."
   Superior Construction is beginning the construction phase of the $1.4 million renovation of the Weber Building at 319 N. Mesquite St, as part of the project by Rose's development company, P2R.
   Belclaire Realty, a Dallas-based real estate investment firm, bought the Lichtenstein building in 1997 with plans to develop the downtown building into as many as 60 loft apartments. Construction has not begun on those lofts.
   The framing at the Weber Building divides the two upper floors of the former Western Union Telegraph Co. building into 10 lofts. The first lofts are expected to be completed in October, along with a martini bar on the first floor.
   The first of these available is a 1,200-square-foot loft on the second floor with five windows looking out along Mesquite Street.
   The lofts' downtown urban feel will be accentuated with the openness of one room for cooking, entertaining and sleeping, elevated ceilings and exposed support beams. The rooms have hardwood floors, a fireplace in the center, stainless steel appliances and gated parking.
   The lofts range in size from 1,000to 1,500 square feet. They will rent for between $1,200 and $1,500 a month with a year's lease. With a deposit, 1st Texas Real Estate will put a prospective tenant's name on the waiting list.
   Larger moves
   "The people who do lease these are going to be very lucky," said Tammie Bricarell, real estate agent at 1st Texas.
   P2R is a group of three investors from Corpus Christi and Galveston and combines the strengths of Rose; Randall Pettit of Galveston, a wine expert who owns a restaurant consulting firm; and Jack Pagan of Galveston, whose family owns car dealerships here and in the Galveston area.
   Together they've built and managed the "21" club in Galveston, the One Med Corp. and the Calallen Minor Emergency Center. Now the group develops lofts. "Lofts are the most popular type of living in downtown Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, Houston, Galveston - everywhere," Rose said.
   Seeing downtown grow
   In Galveston, lofts took off and stayed hot, said Charline Workman, property manager at Randall Davis Co.'s The Strand Lofts in Galveston where lofts ranging from 864 to 1,900 square feet and rent for $775 to $1,585 a month - if you can get one.
   Rose hopes the development will have the same effect on the Corpus Christi downtown.
   "We just want to see downtown grow," Rose said. "We want it to become a place where not only kids come to party at night but where families come down to get dinner, to live."
   The martini bar, called "21," is also in the works for the first floor. The upscale nightclub will feature a variety of live music and 150-bottle wine selection - a similar social gathering place as the "21" P2R built last year in Galveston's Strand District.
   "It's a place where people can dress up or not," Rose said. "It's a very exclusive bar that doesn't have an exclusive attitude."
   Metropolitan feel
   The bar will have a metropolitan feel that is the creation of Amber Felts and Cara Rosenbloom, interior designers with Blue Genius Design of Houston - right down to the custom-made furniture.
   The loft project is a way P2R is combining Corpus Christi's past with its future, said J. Kevin Story, architect with Slattery & Story Architecture in Houston, which is designing the lofts.
   "They've come in and identified what is really an historic building," Story said. "What they wanted to do was come in, preserve the historic character of the building upgrade the systems that are in the building and then create a whole new image of what this building can be for the future."




Business reporter Andrea Jares can be reached at 886-3678 or by email at jaresa@caller.com. On Real Estate is published every other Tuesday in the business section.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]