HOUSTON | Kinder Children’s Cancer Center | FT | FLOORS

[Urbannizer]

Developer: Medistar
Architect: Gensler
Type: Medical, Multifamily, Retail
Location: 6700 Main, Texas Medical Center
Construction Timeline: 3Q 2019 Start - Completion

Medistar to develop health care tower in Texas Medical Center

The article says 25-stories but the renderings suggest something a bit taller. For reference the apartment tower below is 423' ft. The Best Western on site will be demolished.

Houston-based Medistar will develop a roughly 25-story health care tower in the Texas Medical Center – right across the street from the dual hotel-multifamily development the company's currently building.

The health care-focused developer will break ground on the 550,000-square-foot health care tower in the second or third quarter of 2018, Monzer Hourani, CEO of Medistar, told the Houston Business Journal. Medistar is in talks with several health care systems, including Houston and out-of-town systems, to occupy the building. By the time the building breaks ground, Medistar will have secured a user, Hourani said.

"The number one medical center in the world has to have the number one infrastructure to serve it," Hourani said.

Kirksey designed the tower's exterior. A general contractor hasn't been selected. Financial partners or the cost of the project weren't disclosed.

Previous design:

[texboy]

This is an example of how tight the market is getting in the med center, just squeezing this one in! Barely any space left! Handsome building.

[Urbannizer]

This article says 33-stories which is more in line with the renderings.

http://realtynewsreport.com/2017/11/20/medistar-developing-33-story-medical-tower-on-main-street/

[Urbannizer]

Now a 48-story, mixed-use tower. Will become the tallest high-rise in the Texas Medical Center.

48-story mixed-use tower to rise in Texas Medical Center

Houston-based Medistar Corp. is expected to begin construction on its next tower in the Texas Medical Center area around the end of the third quarter of 2019, according to a press release from Houston-based Transwestern.

Transwestern Executive Vice President Justin Brasell and Senior Vice President Lisa Bovermann are handling health care leasing for the project, dubbed Innovation Tower, per the release.

Plans for the medical tower first emerged in November 2017. However, as expected, much has changed since then.

Phase 1 of Innovation Tower will contain 476,500 square feet of medical and life science office space above a 1,700-vehicle parking garage, per the release. There will also be retail space and a penthouse-level restaurant and lounge. The building is outside the bounds of the Texas Medical Center, which restricts for-profit businesses from operating in nonprofit hospital complexes, Medistar CEO Monzer Hourani told the Houston Business Journal in 2017.

The development of Innovation Tower's second phase will depend on market demands. Phase 2 could include 410 luxury high-rise residential units or additional medical, biomedical and life science office space, per the Transwestern release.

Eventually, the tower is expected to be 48 stories and 1.6 million square feet, per the release.

Innovation Tower will be built at 6700 Main St., the site of a SureStay Plus Hotel by Best Western that Medistar bought around 2006 or so, Hourani told HBJ previously. The tower will be connected via a skybridge to Medistar's joint hotel-multifamily development across the street. The Intercontinental Houston Medical Center at 6750 Main St. opened earlier this year, and the attached Greystar apartment development, dubbed Latitude Med Center, at 1850 Old Main St. welcomed its first residents last summer.

“Once completed, Innovation Tower will be the first Class AA tower in the Texas Medical Center offering world-class building amenities to create a distinct live/work/play environment,” Transwestern’s Brasell said in the release. “Innovation Tower will be an iconic building and great complement to the Texas Medical Center."

[TowerSpotter]

Looks like something out of Austin, I love it.

[BonoboZill4]

Originally Posted by TowerSpotter

Looks like something out of Austin, I love it.

Tbh, it looks higher quality than that. Looks like something that could have been built in Chicago in the last 10 years. Impressive stuff for Houston.

[TowerSpotter]

Originally Posted by BonoboZill4

Tbh, it looks higher quality than that. Looks like something that could have been built in Chicago in the last 10 years. Impressive stuff for Houston.

Austin has some high quality projects as well but I do agree it does look like something from Chicago as well.

[Urbannizer]

Website is up!

http://innovationtowertmc.com/


Brochure: https://images3.loopnet.com/d2/C1RXL9NboD6fbANBILAimwjrr3nfVCt-w8Pldnw-tOg/document.pdf (archive link)

Video: http://innovationtowertmc.com/include/InnovationTower_low.mp4

[mhays]

That's a nice looking tower and great density for the TMC...and holy moly the amount of parking.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by mhays

holy moly the amount of parking.

Lots of sick people.

[Spocket]

I don't mean to be "that guy" but, uh, what's what here? The article at the top and the rendering seem to be of two different buildings. That wouldn't be so difficult to parse except that there's a picture of a half-finished building in the middle.

[JManc]

The building under construction (now since finished) is a separate project but still physically attached to this one somehow. The phase I is the first 20 or so stories. Phase II is the skinner portion built on top.

There is another building shown across the street in one of those renderings but that belongs to Texas Children's and is also now completed.

Originally Posted by bilbao58

Lots of sick people.

No kidding. There are 250,000 (patients, students, employees) in the TMC at any given work day. Parking is an absolute must and is at a huge premium. There is a light rail and park and ride but the vast majority still need to drive. For obvious reasons...

[texboy]

Originally Posted by TowerSpotter

Looks like something out of Austin, I love it.

We're really comparing Austin skyscrapers to Houston skyscrapers? lol Come on.... just look downtown Houston. Houston is miles ahead of Austin. The Independent in Austin is about as close as it gets currently in design to anything in Houston.

[bilbao58]

Originally Posted by texboy

The Independent in Austin is about as close as it gets currently in design to anything in Houston.

I'm a dyed-in-the-wool Houstonian. That said, I don't think there is much of anything in Houston that I find as interesting as this (see photo).
In fact, I'm beginning to get really bored with what's being built and/or proposed there. Can only hope the Ismaili Center turns out spectacularly.


Jenga! by bill barfield, on Flickr

[JManc]

Originally Posted by texboy

We're really comparing Austin skyscrapers to Houston skyscrapers? lol Come on.... just look downtown Houston. Houston is miles ahead of Austin. The Independent in Austin is about as close as it gets currently in design to anything in Houston.

He's saying that one building resembles some of the stuff built in Austin. Which i agree with. Houston lacks tall glass residential buildings. This proposal is/ would be the closest thing we would have here to Austin's newer development.

[Cory]

[kingkirbythe....]

I want this built. The TMC needs the height this beautiful building will provide.

[Zerton]

Damn, that's massive. I wish the balconies were inset throughout rather than jutting out.

[shakman]

Originally Posted by Zerton

Damn, that's massive. I wish the balconies were inset throughout rather than jutting out.

I agree with your comment about the balconies.

[Wattleigh]

The Medistar plan for this tower is officially done - the land was sold by them earlier in the year.

I posed this in the Houston highrise thread. There will likely be something substantial built on this site regardless. One of the region's most notable philanthropists has provided a sizeable gift to Texas Childrens Hospital for the development of a new Cancer Center for the campus. It will occupy the site of the small hotel there - and it sounds like the adjacent surface lot.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/health/...ens-md-anderson-150-million-20326925.php

Texas Children's, MD Anderson receive $150 million for new children's cancer center

By Evan MacDonald,
Staff writer

May 14, 2025

The Kinder Foundation is donating $150 million to Texas Children’s Hospital and the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center to support a joint pediatric oncology program that will eventually move into a new building in the Texas Medical Center.

The donation, announced Wednesday, is intended to serve as the lead gift for an ambitious, multi-year campaign that aims to raise $1 billion for the joint pediatric oncology program, MD Anderson president Dr. Peter Pisters said in an interview with the Houston Chronicle.

Approximately $600 million of that total will go toward new a pediatric cancer center, located on the 6700 block of Main Street. The hospitals anticipate completing it in 2030 or 2031. The rest of the funding will go toward faculty, recruiting, and programming.

“This is a transformational gift,” Pisters said. “It sets momentum and establishes trajectory for what we hope will be a catalyst for other generous people in our community to follow, and to really create what will be the world’s greatest (and) the world’s biggest cancer center for children.”

The joint pediatric oncology program, announced in February, unites a pair of Houston health care titans who have long been leaders in their respective specialties. It will allow the hospitals to collaborate and share resources, including access to treatments and clinical trials.

“We are the top children's hospital in the country, and when you have an opportunity to work with the top cancer hospital in the country for this bold mission, I can see nothing more exciting,” Texas Children’s president and CEO Debra Sukin said of the partnership.

The Kinder Foundation's donation is one of the largest in the history of the Texas Medical Center, and the largest made to an American children’s hospital. It’s also the largest that Rich and Nancy Kinder have made since they established their eponymous foundation in 1997.

Also of note from the HBJ

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news...exas-childrens-hospital-kinder-gift.html

"6700 block of Main Street" "a rendering of the facility was not immediately available." "Harris Central Appraisal District property records show that TCH has owned a parcel of land at 6700 Main St,, which is currently a parking lot, since 2012. Meanwhile, city permitting records show that a SureStay Plus Hotel also was located at the 6700 Main St. address. An entity affiliated with TCH bought that site from Houston-based Medistar in January, according to Harris County property records. Pisters said the hotel would be demolished."