Dive Brief:
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Matt Damborsky, the new executive vice president for Skanska USA’s commercial development division in the Houston, TX, market, said the company could tap into the multifamily segment there, according to the Houston Business Journal.
- Skanska USA has turned an eye toward the multifamily market nationally, but it has yet to make an impact in Houston. Damborsky said the company could consider multifamily and mixed-use projects in 2017 and going forward.
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Skanska Commercial Development is active in Boston, Washington, DC, Houston and Seattle. Damborksy called the potential for multifamily development in Houston “really exciting to watch” and noted that “what happens there will be very interesting.”
Dive Insight:
The news follows multifamily firsts for the division in DC and Boston this past year. In April, it completed the 15,000-square-foot, 346-unit Watermark Seaport residential project in Boston. In October, the company broke ground on the 12-story, 326-unit Resa apartment building in Washington, DC’s fast-growing NoMa neighborhood.
The possibility of the company taking on multifamily in Houston, too, comes as the housing market there rebounds to meet new demand and a slowly rebounding oil economy.
Several developers have also recently started work on or have completed housing developments and larger master-planned communities in and around the city.
The Woodson's Reserve MPC in Spring, TX, near Houston, opened its eighth section this month, while developer Long Lake Ltd. said it plans a new residential community a 549-acre tract in Rosenberg, TX, southwest of Houston. The latter is a relatively large deal for the Houston market currently as the down oil economy has meant few 1,000-acre plus tracts for MPCs are being acquired.
Houston’s low housing costs earned it a spot on a March 2016 ranking of the best US cities for first-time homebuyers by personal finance technology firm SmartAsset, coming in fifth.
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