The city is hoping a new apartment complex in downtown Corpus Christi will become popular, attracting many future residents.
It’s called Studio 44, and it’s a micro-apartment building.
The Tax Increment Reinvestment Zone is funding the Studio 44 development.
The tax increment program uses grant money from the city to encourage developers to invest in downtown Corpus Christi.
Developers are using the grant money to renovate the old Hawn building at Buffalo and Carancahua.
The building is being transformed from a vacant building to micro-apartments. Developers say each unit will have about 500 square feet of living space.
Alyssa Barrera, an Executive Director with the Downtown Management District, says, “It will be a smaller unit geared towards a lot of people who spend their time working or out and about."
"But it’ll be like a nice small product that has a different price point that what we have existing downtown,” Barrera continued.
She says the real value of the building is its location because it’s not far from the heart of downtown Corpus Christi.
Barrera says the 44 micro-unit apartments are a big deal because the if more people live downtown, it could attract businesses to downtown Corpus Christi.
“Creating those downtown residents is going to be the first step to our true revitalization,” said Barrera.
According to the area development plan, which was just approved, 1850 new apartment units could be rented out within five years.
"(Studio 44 is now) joining Nueces Lofts and the Cosmopolitan and Bay Vista as options for people to live downtown,” Barrera said.
"And now that the momentum is building for downtown residents, we have a great opportunity down here for locally owned small businesses to thrive, so that’s what we’re looking to attract more of,” said Barrera added.
Studio 44 should be ready for the first tenants to move in by the end of the year.
The same developer for Studio 44 also plans to build full-sized apartments across the street.
That project will be called the Broadway Lofts. The target opening date for that is December 2019.
