Zhukovskyi Development Buys Downtown Houston Office Building

UBS Realty Investors recently offloaded a mostly vacant Downtown Houston office building considered ripe for residential conversion.

The Swiss bank’s real estate arm sold the 24-story, 542,000-square-foot building at 919 Milam Street, deed records show. The buyer is Tampa-based apartment developer Zhukovskyi Development. Realty News Report first reported the trade.

The property, which was built in 1956 and last renovated in 2023, is less than 20 percent occupied. Tenants include the Coronado Club, a members-only dining club. Terms of the sale were not disclosed, but the property was last valued for tax purposes at $48.3 million, appraisal district records show.

It’s not clear whether Zhukovskyi Development has done any work in Texas; the firm has three projects in the pipeline in Florida, according to its website. It started construction on a 17-unit townhouse development in St. Petersburg last fall.

Despite 919 Milam’s large floor plates, which at 22,500 square feet are nearly double the size recommended for a conversion, a November 2023 report by Aecom identified the property as ripe for conversion into apartments, ranking it second behind One City Center, at 1021 Main Street.

Chicago-based 3L Real Estate purchased the distressed property in 2025 from special servicers Midland. At the time, the 608,000-square-foot building was 9 percent occupied. 3L filed plans to convert the property into apartments. The project is expected to cost $26.5 million.

Residential conversion has been lauded as a solution to the glut of older office space in cities across the country, like Houston, where office vacancy remains elevated at about 27 percent, according to Avison Young. But conversions have proven to be tricky maneuvers both financially and logistically. As a result, few proposed conversion projects have been successfully executed.

In its 2025 session, the Texas Legislature passed Senate Bill 840 to attempt to make the process easier by removing requirements for zoning changes on these projects.