@Highland, a new mixed-use office park located on 9 acres at the intersection of Highland Road and Bluebonnet Boulevard, is running about three months behind schedule and likely won’t be completed until late August.
Developer and tech guru Mo Vij—whose company, General Infomatics, will be the anchor tenant in the office park—says a variety of factors are behind the pushed-back completion date. They include routine construction delays, lengthy backups in the parish permits office, and a slight redesign of a two-story vertical live wall of plants that will be the centerpiece of the General Infomatics office.
“No one in Louisiana has ever done a wall like this, so it is tricky,” Vij says. “My contractor made me feel bad but I wanted it done right.”
Vij has been marketing the property on the Louisiana Commercial Database since April. So far, two potential office tenants have signed letters of intent for a total of about 15,000 square feet of office space in the park’s first building. He declines to identify the tenants because lease agreements have not been finalized.
Vij also is in talks with three potential restaurant tenants for a ground floor space in the building, but no letter of intent has yet been signed.
“We feel good about it,” he says. “There’s been a lot of interest, especially when people actually see the space. They love it.”
Vij broke ground on @Highland last October.
The complex will ultimately have four, low-rise buildings nestled up against the Bluebonnet Swamp in what is billed as a campus-like atmosphere with eco-friendly design akin to those of Silicon Valley tech companies.
General Infomatics will be located in the first of the four buildings—a $20 million, 54,000-square-foot glass and steel office structure that will be developed before the other three.
—Stephanie Riegel
