By George Slaughter
Jerry Webb of Houston takes a photo of a model of the Katy Boardwalk District. The model is on display through June 30 – George Slaughter photo
The first Katy Boardwalk District building under construction, the Boardwalk Lofts, is expected to open next spring, city tourism director Kayce Reina said.
The lofts will be high-end rental units, situated on Kingsland Boulevard near the Katy Mills Mall. The lofts will feature one, two, and three-bedroom floorplans. Lofts will range in size from 480 to 2,087 square feet. Sueba Development is building the lofts.
The Katy Boardwalk District is a lakefront mixed use community that will include a four-star, full-service conference center hotel, 155,000 square feet of high-end dining and entertainment space, and 60,000 square feet of Class A office space. It will also include an outdoor meeting area that can be used for public assemblies.
The hotel is expected to be a Hyatt Regency, though Reina said the official announcement is expected in July or August. The hotel and convention center are scheduled to be constructed in the second phase of the project. Reina said the hotel and convention center are expected to open in 2021.
Part of the construction will include a traffic light at the Katy Pin Oak Road-Kingsland intersection. Currently, the intersection is a three-way stop.
Even though traffic will be denser because of the development, Reina said the city has conducted several traffic studies for the area.
“It’s not like an event where everyone is leaving at one time,” Reina said. “People will show up at different times and leave at different times. It’s going to survive just as your neighborhood does.”
Kingsland Boulevard borders what will be the northern portion of the development. A man-made lake, which will include a two-mile walking trail, will be border the southern portion. Trail hours will be from dawn to dusk.
Reina said the trail will be an attraction for both convention-goers staying in the area, but for Katy-area residents as well.
“It’s not The Woodlands Town Center, where you have a concrete edge and water fountain,” Reina said. “It’s truly a nature preserve. It’s really going to be a nod to Katy’s prairie history. It really is an oasis back there.”
Reina said a goal for the district was that it be unique to Katy.
“It’s definitely going to be unique,” Reina said. “We really wanted to create a destination here. We really wanted it not to be something that you can pick up and put anywhere. This is something that’s going to be unique with Katy. All the partners in this development have agreed that this is the look we wanted to achieve.”
This week, a model of the completed Katy Boardwalk District was placed in the City Hall lobby.
“We encourage the public to come and look,” Reina said. “Sometimes its’s easier to see a representation of the development than pictures, or verbally.”
The Katy Boardwalk District, along with the nearby Typhoon Texas water park and Katy Mills Mall, are and will be important economic generators for the Katy area. Mall renovations began last year.
The web site for the project is katyboardwalkdistrict.com.