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Community Spotlight: Urban living, fitness options abound in Rice Military
By Cheryl P. Rose | July 11, 2013 | Updated: July 12, 2013 8:39am
If the 1,466 acres of Memorial Park are in your backyard, fitness options abound. Rice Military, a historicneighborhood on the fringes, is now a hip locale for young professionals and those without children interested in culture, fitness and walkable living.
Vicki Barazandeh of John Daugherty, Realtors, estimated the population of the approximately 1,600 homes that make up Rice Military to be 60 percent young singles and couples and 40 percent middle-age residents without children.
"Young people want to be close to the night life and great restaurants of downtown, in addition to living close to where they work," she said. "The residents without children work downtown, too, but were commuting for years and now they don't have to do that. Now they can be close to culture and activities offered in the city. They don't want to be on the roads commuting. They value time over house size."
One thing that appeals to these demographics is the ability to walk to restaurants, shopping, art galleries and of course, Memorial Park, in addition to several other local parks.
"There are people who run to the park every day," Barazandeh said. "People here are very health conscious."
With a housing trend toward vertical living, a degree of fitness is helpful for three- and four-story living. Limited yard space is leading to building designs with balconies and rooftop terraces with views of downtown, Barazandeh said. One example is a gated townhouse villa community called Caceres, where homes have four stories with a roof terrace, priced $700,000 to $1.2 million.
Rice Military is bordered by Westcott on the west, Shepherd/Durham on the on the east, Washington to the north and Buffalo Bayou to the south. There is a variety of housing options - single-family homes, condos, apartments - mixed with old and new construction. Prices can range from $150,000 to $1.4 million.
"Land is very expensive right now, about $62 a square foot, if you can find any," Barazandeh said. "In the past year, I have sold 15 new-construction homes averaging 3,000 square feet on a 2,500-square-foot lot for $700,000. There are older townhomes in the $150,000 to $250,000 range and one-bedroom condos from $120,000. Homes in Rice Military stay on the market approximately 30 days."
The neighborhood is named for an army training camp from World War I that existed in the area. Among art galleries and parks, Rice Military has the kitsch Houston landmark, the Beer Can House, and the Bayou Bend Collections and Gardens of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston.
"In the suburbs, people volunteer with their children's schools," Barazandeh said," but here I've noticed people volunteer with the arts, finding a different way to give of themselves."
Barazandeh remembers showing potential buyers in the 1990s a brochure from the city of Houston about a future corridor to downtown.
"There's this thing they were calling a roundabout that would go all the way to Washington and it was going to be all restaurants," Barazandah said. "It was very difficult to believe. Now the roundabout at Washington on Westcott is really beautiful."