New River Oaks Village in Houston — Discover The RO, a pedestrian paradise with a grand hotel, a 28-story skyscraper, local restaurants and leafy corridors

AAttempting to create a unique new village in the heart of Houston requires a sense of boldness, a boldness of conviction. But to achieve this, Transwestern ultimately decided it needed a dream team of architects on its side. These varied architectural visions working in harmony will define The RO, a new 17-acre mixed-use development located at the intersection of West Alabama and Buffalo Speedway with the Bayou City’s first Auberge Resorts Collection hotel.

“We could have done it with one or two (architects),” Transwestern President Carleton Riser said. Paper city. “We wanted different architects because we wanted the buildings to have their own personality. And the only way to do that is to ask different people to do it.

“Cities were not designed by a single architect.”

Pickard Chilton, best known for designing some of the world’s most notable skyscrapers (including the Uber Sky Tower in Los Angeles and River Point in Chicago), is the lead planner for The RO, which will feature a residential skyscraper 28 floors. (317 units) and a seven-story boutique office building with a single tenant. Kohn Pedersen Fox designed The Birdsall, the Auberge hotel and private residences. Dillon Kyle Architects, a favorite of River Oaks’ owners, is tackling the interiors of The Birdsall’s 44 private residences, while Roman and Williams (who did San’s already beloved Emma Hotel Antonio), take care of the interiors of the hotel itself. Architectural firm Michael Hsu was commissioned to design the retail spaces with House & Robertson, the leading retail architect. Kendall/Heaton Associates is the architect of record for the office component. OJB – behind Houston’s Levy Park and Dallas’ Klyde Warren Park, as well as New York’s upcoming Freedom Plaza – gets the nod as RO’s landscape architect.

This list represents a huge amount of architectural influence and know-how. This new village will be built by a village in many ways.

For project manager Sean Suffel, what he calls “one of the most coveted sites in the city for many decades” demands nothing less. The RO site is directly across the street from St. John’s School, on the former headquarters of Exxon Mobil’s upstream research campus, which the oil giant owned since the 1940s before selling it in 2017. Have such a large site in the heart of the River Oaks region, one that makes Suffel marvel at its perfect geometry, is a developer’s version of the search for the Holy Grail.

To determine how best to use this rare site, the Transwestern team studied mixed-use projects across the country and particularly in Texas, ultimately landing on The Pearl in San Antonio as inspiration for its sense of placemaking.

“The conclusion we came to is that Houston doesn’t really have anything that looks like Houston,” Suffel says. “More to the point, there’s really nothing like the River Oaks area.”

To ensure The RO does this, the masterplan calls for all parking to be peripheral and underground, creating a pedestrian-only haven at the center of the development. The RO will be marked by leafy, leafy avenues, where strollers among shops and restaurants will not compete with cars. Instead, people will walk on paved paths with five or six iconic oak trees already on the site that will be moved to prime locations.

“We want to do something really special with the landscaping that looks like some of these areas in River Oaks,” Suffel says.

“I don’t think there’s a place like this.” We’re creating a little village that I think is unique to Houston. — Transwestern President Carleton Riser

The RO, where pedestrians reign in Houston

Having an automobile-free environment at the center of everything makes everything else possible at RO. This may go against almost every instinct in a city as auto-centric as Houston. But that’s the point.

“From our point of view, it creates a really, really special place,” Suffel says of keeping cars out. “I would say there’s nothing like it in the city. And I haven’t seen anything like that in the state.

As Suffel speaks, seated around a large conference table at Transwestern’s headquarters on the South Loop, a rendering of the courtyard outside the Birdsall Hotel is displayed on a large screen on the ball. This is the image at the top of this story. A scene worthy of a postcard. Verdant, almost pastoral and seemingly a world away from the traffic and noise of America’s fourth largest city. This is what this development team wants to give to the RO when it opens in 2027 (the inauguration of the works will take place in June).

The Transwestern team behind this feels somewhat of a personal responsibility to make this happen. This particular site, this location so close to their offices and their own homes in many cases, adds to that sense of urgency. Even the most experienced developers only get one chance to complete a project like this.

“We live nearby. If we’re wrong, we have to move,” jokes Suffel. “We love our homes.”

As Transwestern officials say Paper city an exclusive look at The RO, a giant model sitting in the middle of the conference table. All the buildings in this mixed-use development are there in miniature, down to the smallest details. You can even see a basketball/pickleball/volleyball sports court that will showcase the office building’s open-air rooftop, which its only tenant is already signed on to (Suffel declines to reveal the name of the company). This lot requires landscaping that will prevent balls from bouncing off the roof to west Alabama below.

Every detail counts. Every little thing adds up to a bigger, bigger whole.

“The conclusion we came to is that Houston doesn’t really have anything that looks like Houston. More to the point, there really isn’t anything quite like the River Oaks area. — Sean Suffel, Transwestern project manager

The Birdsall, a Houston story and no ordinary hotel

To further differentiate The RO, retail spaces are pushed back rather than integrated into the buildings podium (which is typical). This allows stores and restaurants to have their own “architectural identity,” Suffel notes.

The 75,000 square feet of retail space will include six to eight restaurants. “The idea is to bring things that are unique to Houston – to collaborate with the local chef community. It’s going to be something unique and very interesting,” says Suffel. “We don’t want to impose that on national brands.”

The Birdsall Hotel and Residences honors a quintessential Houston figure: Birdsall Parmenas Briscoe (1876-1971), whose 50-year architectural career helped shape Houston. The Auberge is known for hotels such as the Hotel Jerome in Aspen, but is owned by the Houston-based Friedkin Group, whose owner and CEO, billionaire and AS Roma soccer club owner Dan Friedkin , is friends with Transwestern founder and chairman Robert Duncan, who knew of the Friedkins’ long-held desire to open a hotel in Houston.

A hotel that somehow resembles a soulless hotel, even ultra-luxurious, that one could find in any big city. The Birdsall will have just 105 rooms and its 44 private residences will be even more exclusive. While Birdsall residents will have access to all of the hotel’s amenities, they will also enjoy their own resident-only benefits. This includes a library for residents and a private swimming pool for residents which will be both open air and indoor.

Turning to Dillon Kyle Architects, which has completed so many homes in River Oaks, to design the interiors of these residences, is no coincidence.

“The directive we gave him was, ‘Let’s take something that would be a River Oaks house and just put it in a hotel,’” Suffel says.

L’Auberge only opens hotels in special locations. Its billionaire owner is betting that Transwestern and all these world-class architects will create one with The RO.

“I don’t think there’s a place like this,” Riser says. Paper city. “We’re creating a little village that I think is unique to Houston.”

This special site proved to be the perfect location, the ideal partner for such a grandiose vision. A place where influential architects work together to create a greater whole.

“They exchange ideas,” says Transwestern partner Gary Tesch. “It’s cool to see them all playing together.”

The RO is only just getting started and it is already defying all odds, creating harmony between all its different parts. Sometimes being bold is the only thing that might work.