After seven years of preparations for a 104-acre mixed-use project in west Houston, Richfield Investment Corp. has finally begun construction on the first element to come out of the ground -- a high-end multifamily complex.

Richfield has started building the first phase of Portico at West 8 near the corner of Westheimer and Beltway 8. Portico is part of the West Eight mixed-use project that will eventually include space for residences, office, entertainment, retail and restaurants.

Richfield announced this week it will initially construct 230 of Portico's 510 planned units. The apartment complex will cost more than $20 million and consist of multiple four-story buildings and an 1,100-space parking garage.

Portico will be located at 3003 Seagler Road, which is about a half-mile south of Westheimer. The apartments are right in the center of the 4.2-square-mile Westchase District, which leaders say needs this type of development.

"There's a huge amount of demand for different types of housing in the Westchase District," says Jim Murphy, president of the district. "High-end, midrise properties don't exist in this part of Houston. In terms of product type, it sounds like they hit the sweet spot."

Portico will have a mix of Spanish, Mediterranean and Texan architectural elements created by Antonio Flamenco of Houston-based Insite Architecture Inc. Flamenco recently gained fame as the architect of the 2005 HGTV Dream Home in Tyler.

Apartment units will feature Roman soaking tubs, frameless showers, stainless-steel appliances, glass-top stoves, brushed-nickel fixtures, crown molding and spaces designed for home offices.

Rental rates have not yet been set for the units, which will range in size from 815 square feet to 2,400 square feet. The Portico apartments are expected to be ready for occupancy by November.

Long time coming

The 104-acre West Eight site was purchased from Baker Hughes Inc. in 1999 by West Eight LP, a private group of California-based investors. The investors, in turn, hired Houston-based Richfield as the project developer.

It has taken years of land development just to get to the point of breaking ground on the first element in the project. Over the past seven years, Richfield has demolished roughly 20 buildings on the site; re-engineered water, gas and electricity lines; transplanted 40-year-old live oak trees; and extended streets. The company also had to remove underground tunnels that traversed the entire Baker Hughes property.

Ginger Stephens, Richfield's property supervisor for residential operations, says there were a lot of issues to address on the site.

"We were slow at doing all those things," she says, "but they were issues that were put in our lap by Baker Hughes."

Richfield President Rick Sabella said in a prepared statement that he knew a project of this scope would take many years to develop because all of the separate pieces affect each other during the planning process.

"One move speaks to the next like a Rubik's cube," Sabella said. "There is nothing easy about mixed-use."

The simplest improvements probably occurred on existing properties. Richfield spent $3 million three years ago to renovate the interior of an 11-story, 261,000-square-foot office building at 10205 Westheimer called the West 8 Tower. Richfield also gave an extreme makeover to the 33-year-old Carillon shopping plaza, which it has owned since 1995.

The company has spent a dozen years amassing some 10,000 acres of land in the Houston area for various developments. The firm formed Richfield Homes in 2003 with plans to build as many as 30,000 homes in the area over the next 10 years.

jdawson@bizjournals.com • 713-960-5935