After about a year of date-pushing, today marks the groundbreaking ceremony for the Houston Pavilions project downtown, which was apparently only attended by about 75-100 people. Two more anchor tenants were announced - Books-A-Million and Forever21 - in addition to the already secured House of Blues and Lucky Strike Lanes. Restaurants supposedly set to be included are Lawry's, McCormick & Schmick's, Yao's, Antica Osteria, and Guadalajara del Centro (don't leave your American Express at home, folks).

According to the press release, there will be 360,000 sq. ft. of retail space, 200,000 sq. ft. of office space, and a parking garage that beats 'em both: 480,000 sq. ft. with 1,525 spaces. Of course, if you aren't coming to HP from your downtown loft or office and you don't want to park in the garage, you can ride the rail in - the Bell or Main St. Square stops are nearby.

The architecture firm is Hellmuth, Obata + Kassabaum, Inc., and D.E. Harvey Builders is the general contractor. The developers of the project are suburban mall man William Denton and office building/shopping center developer Geoffrey Jones. You may know of Denton from these beauties: Baybrook, Deerbrook, and Willowbrook malls. Jones is responsible for The Woodlands' Compass Bank Building and Cedarstone Offices, and Northdale Plaza (Kingwood), April Pointe Plaza (Lake Conroe), and Theiss Oaks Square (FM 1960).

Since the residential portion of the project was scrapped late last year, we can only hope that the magnet of HP is strong enough to pull more people downtown after 5 and on weekends (and, unfortunately for HP, nobody has cared to update the website to reflect this change - or any other changes, for that matter - (screenshot)).
From KTRK:

"Downtown living is new to Houston. Everybody likes their suburbs," said Kathryn Koepke with O'Connor and Associates. "It may attract more. I don't know that it's going to be a boon to the residential market. Houston Pavilions itself canceled their residential component, but Finger Companies has a project that's going in about three blocks away. So there's more supply coming in. I think as long as the supply is limited and prudent and it's planning and targeting the right market, it'll be OK."

Photo: Flickr user stjnky