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A n orange construction elevator takes you to the very top. It actually looks more like a grown-up version of a half-finished Disney ride. The fore- man grins and guarantees everyone a smooth trip, just before he presses a button and sends the contraption lurching to life. A few moments later, you're at the top of The Wilshire. The walls of this floor haven't been put in yet, so there's nothing between you and the views. There's the Williams Tower on one side, River Oaks and its canopy of trees on another, downtown over there, and the crawl of cars on 610 down below. All of Houston stretches out below you. "It's something, isn't it?" says Robert Bland, ambling close to the edge. Bland, the 88-year-old founder of Pelican Builders, has seen it all in Houston real estate, yet views like these still make him pause and take in the wows. It's no wonder that many of The Wilshire's future resident owner- ship agreements are consummated after trips up that orange construction elevator. Something else becomes apparent: Houston's high-rise building boom — the one oil-uncertainty supposedly put into peril — has not stopped. Instead, it's become more refined, selective, and luxurious. New projects are still springing up. Developers are still gobbling up any decent-sized plot of land anywhere close to River Oaks. Looking out at cranes and land being razed, it's clear this is the epicenter. Hous- ton's own version of Chicago's Magnificent Mile takes shape below — only like most things in Houston, it's a little more spread out. "Location is more important than ever," says Peli- can president Derek Darnell. "And River Oaks is still River Oaks." That's why Pelican is jumping full speed ahead into a new high-profile luxury project, The Revere at River Oaks. The nine-story building with only 33 res- idences is a 10-minute walk to the West Ave shops and restaurants. Bland sees it as Houston's own little slice of Park Avenue. These are the types of high-rises and mid-rises selling fast in Houston. The more well-thought-out and luxurious, the more demand. Developers who elected to go after more modest price points, to ramp down amenities to keep rents and purchase prices lower, found trouble. A high-rise needs to be in a coveted location or posses an attention-grabbing amenity (Market Square Tower's glass-bottom pool that dangles over the street or 2929 Weslayan's show-stopping steak and sushi restaurant, Roka Akor, for instance) to excel in this market. Just ask the developers of The Ivy Lofts, who confidently introduced micro condos to Houston only to find that even Texas millennials have little interest in going small. That project is now being recast as a condo hotel. Buyers are looking for custom homes in the sky. That's how Giorgio Borlenghi, the sharply dressed developer from Milan so beloved by the River Oaks crowd, puts it. Borlenghi follows one high-profile luxury project with another, begin- ning with Four Leaf Towers in 1982, to Villa D'Este and Montebello in Uptown Park, to the recently completed, plush 26-story, nearly sold-out Belfiore on Post Oak, and now the announcement of the plusher-yet, 26-story Villa Borghese that's close enough to River Oaks' official boundaries to coyly flirt with the neighborhood. Just as importantly, Borlenghi's new high rise displays an understanding that downsizing in Houston is still fundamentally different from downsizing in New York. "Going from a 12,000-square-foot house to a 2,000 -square-foot condominium is not feasible," he says. But mov- ing into a near 5,000-square-foot condo with a 24/7 guard house, 24/7 valet parking, and 24/7 concierge service just may fit a River Oaks empty-nester's lifestyle. Pared down doesn't sell. Special does. That's why a makeshift orange elevator — a cage to the sky — does some of a high-rise's most convincing pitches. By CHRIS BALDWIN (Continued on page 100) 97