Good times for downtown's residential market

At times, we've looked at all the apartments going in downtown and wondered how many people actually lived there. The answer, according to the Chronicle, is quite a few: The occupancy rate for downtown apartments is 89 percent and seems to be growing. That's up 6 percent over last year; by contrast, demand for apartments citywide decreased by 1.7 percent in the last 12 months. The main reason: convenience. "Our kids are grown and gone," Lanetta Weeks, a 59-year-old downtown worker who recently moved to the St. Germain on Main Street with her husband, Andy. "We came downtown and it looked so interesting, we thought why not do it?"

A more than 90 percent occupancy rate for Class A office space is giving developers confidence in the downtown residential market, too: The Finger Cos. is planning a 37-story apartment tower near Discovery Green, the new downtown park, and another developer wants to rehabilitate the historic Texas Company Building at San Jacinto and Rusk into residential units. But in other parts of downtown, plans have fallen through — at Houston Pavilions, two proposed residential towers were scrapped, and the Shamrock Tower at Main and Texas never got off the ground.

Overall, we're encouraged by the news that people want to live downtown, but we wonder how long downtown can sustain the residents without offering any services for them — few stores downtown are open evenings and weekends, most restaurants and bars are concentrated along upper Main Street and Market Square, and there's still no full-scale grocery store within walking distance of most residents. In other words, downtown may be a cool place to live, but it still has a way to go before it's a neighborhood.

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photo: Flickr user groovehouse