Barvin completes first ground-up apartment complex

Houston-based developer adding housing to Texas Medical Center area

7892 Knight Road and Eric Barvin and Derrek LeRouax with Barvin (Google Maps, Barvin, Getty)
7892 Knight Road and Eric Barvin and Derrek LeRouax with Barvin (Google Maps, Barvin, Getty)

A Houston-based developer has opened its first ground-up apartment project, near the Texas Medical Center.

Barvin, an apartment investment, development and management firm founded in 2009, opened the 281-unit Revl Med Center at 7892 Knight Road, the Houston Chronicle reported. The development has coworking space and conference rooms that will serve the nearby medical center, which has more than 100,000 workers.

“It really serves a great niche,” the group’s founder, Eric Barvin, said at the grand opening.

The property is 26 percent occupied after two months, without offering specials, he said.

“It’s a testament to demand,” he said.

Studio units in the five-story complex are available for rent at $1,260 per month, and three-bedroom units will go for $3,000 or more. Students and local medical professionals have been driving demand for the smaller units.

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The 3.3-acre property holds the apartment building as well as a five-story parking garage that sits above an underground stormwater retention vault.
“We built the largest structured detention vault in Houston,” Derrek LeRouax, vice president of development for Barvin, told the newspaper. “It’s a concrete bathtub … the size of a football field, 23 feet deep.”

The apartments, which range from 464 to 1,400 square feet, have open floor plans, built-in shelving, lighted kitchen cabinets, quartz countertops and large windows. Residents will have access to electric car chargers, smart washers and dryers, an infinity-edge pool, fitness center and dog wash.

Barvin said it plans to break ground on its next project in the first quarter of 2023. The company owns apartment properties in Houston, Dallas, Austin and San Antonio and is exploring other Texas markets.

The company plans to break ground on Stella & Braes, a mixed-use project in Houston’s Braeswood Place that will have a 310-unit apartment complex.

Future plans include 25,000 square feet of dining and retail and an additional 350 residential units.

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— Victoria Pruitt