Satya Lands Construction Loan for Houston St. Regis Tower

Institutional capital is taking notice of Houstonians’ appetite for luxury vertical living.

Satya secured a $255 million construction loan to build the St. Regis Residences, the brand’s first purely residential project in the Lone Star State, according to a release from Satya. International Bank of Commerce provided the loan.

The 38-story, 90-unit condo project will be located at 102 Asbury Street in Houston’s River Oaks neighborhood. The loan amounts to $2.8 million per unit.

The development will feature seven penthouses; its amenities include wellness offerings like cold plunges, saunas, steam rooms, a gym, pool and meditation garden, as well as a 20th-floor private dining room.

Residents will get St. Regis valet and butler service.

Prices start at $3 million. Satya plans to start construction in the fourth quarter and complete the project by the fourth quarter of 2027. Douglas Elliman is marketing the condos.

Contracts are in place for about 15 of the units, said Satya CEO Sunny Bathija. The developer increased the size of the project earlier this year when there was a swell of buyer interest.

The buyer profile ranges, Bathija said. Some are empty nesters who “want a lock-and-leave experience.” Bathija said he recently had lunch with a buyer who explained he was drawn to the condo because he hadn’t been upstairs at his 6,000-square-foot house in years.

“A lot of empty-nesters have made enough money and they have second and third homes. They don’t want to deal with the maintenance of houses and lawns,” he said.

Multiple buyers are folks who work in the energy industry and frequently travel internationally.

The market for luxury condos is less developed in Houston, Dallas and Austin than peer cities like Miami, New York and Chicago. Luxury buyers in Texas have long preferred to spread out.

“Single-family living has been the core thing for Texans for a long, long time,” Bathija said.

The other explanation for the market’s newness is that it’s harder to get condo projects financed here. Texas is one of about a dozen states that does not allow developers to use deposits from condo pre-sales on construction.

Developers are finding ways around the financing obstacles. For example, when developing the Hawthorne in Tanglewood, Pelican Builders and Ember Group refinanced their debt on the project with a $111 million loan that leveraged the unsold inventory as collateral for the loan.

There was a push this past legislative session to change the law, but it wasn’t successful. Bathija is optimistic it’ll move forward in the next few years.

Despite the financing challenges, new condo projects are getting built and performing well, proving there’s demand for the product. Also in River Oaks, Randall Davis Company’s London House opened earlier this year with all but two units pre-sold.

Bathija has been building condo projects in Houston for about a decade. In that time, he’s seen Houstonians learn they like condo living and spread the word.

“We’re not saying that no one else can do this, but we are raising the bar,” he said. “We want Texas to have something more, and I think they deserve it.”