Zadok family’s crown jewel ready to open on Post Oak
Five-story, mixed-use building to be home to offices, retailers and more
Post Oak Place, a high-end retail center developed by Zadok Jewelers, a decades-old family business in the Galleria area, is set to open today.
The five-story, 112,000-squarefoot building at 1801 Post Oak houses the Zadok Jewelers, office tenants on upper floors and boutiques for luxury jewelry and watch brands such as Cartier, A. Lange & Söhne and Roger Dubuis. The family aims to complete construction on an upstairs lounge next month, and later this year James Beard Award-winning chef Tyson Cole plans to open a second Uchiko location at one of two restaurant spaces in the development.
The Zadok family spent the last 18 months developing the project, even as the pandemic hammered retail and placed slowdowns along the path to completed construction.
The Zadoks purchased the 1.65-acre property in 2012 from developer Gerald Hines, who built a retail center there in 1971 called Post Oak Row — a 23,000square-foot strip center that was the former home of Tony's, one of Houston's oldest restaurants and one of the top-rated in the city. Tony's moved to a new building in Greenway Plaza in 2005.
A Hines-owned entity sold the property for an undisclosed amount. The Zadoks declined to comment on how much they spent redeveloping the property.
“When I bought this property, this was the dream,” Dror Zadok said, looking around his new store on Wednesday as his three sons directed contractors. Construction equipment hummed and thwacked.
He and his wife, Helene, started the store 45 years ago.
“This is a legacy to pass on to our family,” she said.
The Zadoks’ store occupies 28,000 square feet on the first and second floors of the building, designed by Austin-based Michael Hsu Office of Architecture.
The jewelers make and service jewelry onsite, and the family partnered with luxury watchmakers and jewelers to create four in-store boutiques reflecting the look and feel of their respective flagships, as well as more than a dozen “shop-in-shops” from various brands.
“This is one of the most important retail projects undertaken by any independent jeweler in the U.S. in the last 20 years,” Rudy Chavez, watchmaker A. Lange
& Söhne’s president in North America, said in a news release.
In the years leading up to construction, the Zadoks traveled the world together, visiting luxury jewelry stores in London, Paris and Singapore for design inspiration.
Once completed, the project will also house an upstairs bridal shop and fitting room, a custom design studio and full-bar lounge designed by Houston’s Nina Magon.
The family faced pandemic-related challenges during construction, Jonathan Zadok said, including a Canadian mill company that shut down, cutting off supplies.
“We had our obstacles,” he said. “I assure you, it was not our plan to start this and have COVID hit us.”
The development has around 70,000 square feet of office space upstairs, he said, including 40,000 already leased to the financial services firm Northern Trust.
They decided to develop mixed uses at the site to justify the cost of the land, Jonathan
Zadok said, and to cultivate a grouping of businesses that complement each other.
The Zadoks aimed to create a store for the ages, building upon the 45-year foundation it built at the space it rented next door.
“People who bought jewelry from my dad — now their children are coming,” Jonathan Zadok said.
“And their children’s children,” his father added. “Our dream is to bring them back again and again and again.”