TMC BioPort: 500-Acre Bio Manufacturing Campus

[Nan]

Looking for a roommate to share a 2017-built townhouse in a gated community

The rest of the house is fully furnished and the bedroom can be either furnished or unfurnished

$850 rent + shared utilities (electricity, natural gas and internet)

Room available now and minimal lease term 6 months (extendable)

Easy access to rail (Astrodome 7-10 min walking distance), bus, restaurants and corner stores

Washer/dryer/dishwasher/fridge/microwave all included and private garage

Current roommate (male) works at the medical center

Please feel free to contact Nan (jungonan@hotmail.com)

Thanks

 

 

 

 

 

[Highrise Tower]

Noticed this on Loopnet.  This is across the street from UT's land on Holmes road.

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/700-Holmes-Rd-Houston-TX/8791075/

 

Good chunk of land for urban sprawl.  I bet within 20 years this place will become mixed-use with housing, office, and shopping. 

 

[Highrise Tower]

Stopped by on my run.

 

 

[Highrise Tower]

Saw this For Sale sign the other month.  Lots of vacant land on Buffalo Speedway. Probably will all slowly develop over the next 20 years.

 

 

[hawee]

Just curious why the area south of 610 and NRG is so undeveloped. Any rhyme or reason why areas northwest of Houston and north east of Houston would develop more while south of 610 seems so undeveloped and just raw land. 
 

 

[Ross]

5 hours ago, hawee said:

Just curious why the area south of 610 and NRG is so undeveloped. Any rhyme or reason why areas northwest of Houston and north east of Houston would develop more while south of 610 seems so undeveloped and just raw land. 
 

 

The area just South of 610 was an oil field, and the owners of the rest of the land were running their cattle businesses and had no interest in selling for development.

[Arboosto]

Part of the answer is that decades ago the city placed landfills in the Black suburban development of Sunnyside. This article highlights present day reclamation of some of that land for a solar farm and provides historical context, particularly in the 5th paragraph. 
In Houston's Sunnyside, overburdened from decades of discrimination, you learn to provide for yourself

[Nate99]

1 hour ago, Ross said:

The area just South of 610 was an oil field, and the owners of the rest of the land were running their cattle businesses and had no interest in selling for development.

That would have been my guess. Old oil fields are typically seen as oil fields waiting on technology to surpass what existed when they stopped producing the last time.  Mineral rights owners will go generations waiting for it to come around, and I'd imagine no developer would want to build on top of land with a permanent easement for future development of wells, if doing so is even legal.  Mineral rights changing hands is a completely different economic ballgame compared to the real estate it is attached to. 

[s3mh]

Long ago there were plans to build a huge retirement community on the land where Astroworld used to be.  That blew up for many of the same reasons a lot of pie in the sky development ideas went down in flames in the early 2000s.  Not sure why the land still hasn't been redeveloped other than it is a lousy location.  

Otherwise, there are a couple of superfund sites around Wildcat Golf Club.  I think a lot of the land around there has too many environmental issues to allow it to be redeveloped.  

[H-Town Man]

On 10/22/2021 at 9:22 AM, Nate99 said:

That would have been my guess. Old oil fields are typically seen as oil fields waiting on technology to surpass what existed when they stopped producing the last time.  Mineral rights owners will go generations waiting for it to come around, and I'd imagine no developer would want to build on top of land with a permanent easement for future development of wells, if doing so is even legal.  Mineral rights changing hands is a completely different economic ballgame compared to the real estate it is attached to. 

They will get developed if the land value goes up enough. Lots of oil fields around Houston have been developed and now look like any suburban area - Humble, Tomball, Fairbanks, etc. Some have been mostly developed with just a small core area remaining. This link is fun to explore:

https://gis.rrc.texas.gov/GISViewer/

[aachor]

Maybe someone who is more familiar with the history of the city can explain this. Why is it that there is this massive stretch of seemingly mostly untouched forest between Bellfort and Airport, right off of south main, and so close to the loop? How did it go so long without being developed, despite development on all sides and to the south, even farther from the loop? 

Was something in this area previously? Was there some sort of planned greenbelt at one time?


 

[hindesky]

Oil drilling back in the early 1920's -40's, underground salt domes used for storage caverns for crude oil, sand pits and old trash dumps. Wildcat Golf Club was a trash dump years ago before it was converted to a golf course in the late 90's to 00's

Edited January 15, 2022 by hindesky

[wilcal]

38 minutes ago, aachor said:

Maybe someone who is more familiar with the history of the city can explain this. Why is it that there is this massive stretch of seemingly mostly untouched forest between Bellfort and Airport, right off of south main, and so close to the loop? How did it go so long without being developed, despite development on all sides and to the south, even farther from the loop? 

Was something in this area previously? Was there some sort of planned greenbelt at one time?


 

Wildcat Golf Club was a landfill. The big green square on the right was a landfill (and becoming a solar farm).

The main area had oil wells on it IIRC.

Edited January 15, 2022 by wilcal

[rechlin]

More about it here:

This map shows the oil wells in that area; the left side of the circle below more or less matches up with the area you circled above:

 

[aachor]

11 minutes ago, rechlin said:

More about it here:

This map shows the oil wells in that area; the left side of the circle below more or less matches up with the area you circled above:

 

This is some awesome history. Thank you all!

[toxtethogrady]

On 1/14/2022 at 6:30 PM, aachor said:

Maybe someone who is more familiar with the history of the city can explain this. Why is it that there is this massive stretch of seemingly mostly untouched forest between Bellfort and Airport, right off of south main, and so close to the loop? How did it go so long without being developed, despite development on all sides and to the south, even farther from the loop? 

Was something in this area previously? Was there some sort of planned greenbelt at one time?


 

For a long time, the entire south side, especially around the Dome, was not able to develop because City utilities did not reach it. Also, 288 was not built. Both of those developments, which occurred in the '80s, allowed both commercial and residential development to extend southward. 

[hbcu]

it's starting to develop now - drive down Buffalo Speedway

[Highrise Tower]

I've been looking at this Loopnet listing for a month. That area has so much potential!  It's mostly contaminated forest land.  These parcels are also located across the 307-Acre UT Research Campus Proposal.

I know there was once a proposal, about 13 years ago, that covered a lot of the Buffalo Speedway forest land  Obviously that was never realized. Here's the Loopnet listing I saw.  Too much information to post in the thread.

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/Holmes-Rd-and-Buffalo-Speedway-Houston-TX/8791075/

Across Holmes Road from the 320-acre University of Texas purchase, the 115 acres is a Texas Medical Center auxiliary property.

Mostly wooded, the property consists of nine parcels which adjoin the Wildcat Golf Course, of the Houston Texans, the University of Houston Cougars and the Houston Rockets, with frontage on the extension of Buffalo Speedway, one of the most prominent north-south major thoroughfares in Houston and the south side of Holmes Road, a prominent east-west thoroughfare now being 4-laned with curb and gutter and center esplanade over 42" to 48"sewer.

[Highrise Tower]

Tract 2 and 3 are active. I can only imagine remediation is about to take place?

[Highrise Tower]

Noticed this the other day. I wonder if it's Crown Castle's?

Edit: No, it clearly states "Site Concepts, Inc." out of Palm City, Florida.

[Highrise Tower]

Noticed this on my run. I didn't think this parcel was under contract? It's the land located within the Buffalo Speedway Connector loop.

[Highrise Tower]

The area of the proposed Europa At Houstonian Lakes development is now being split up into tracts.  Something may be finally happening with the Buffalo Speedway/Holmes Road saga. Of course the whole 307-Acre UT Research Park proposed development is still dormant.

Here is the property flyer by Land Quest Development from 13 years ago. See original posting by Urb.

[Fortune]

Such a large assembly of land so close to the inner city. Sucks that one developer could not come up with a masterplan and develop it instead of selling it off piece by piece. Where is Midway when you need them .. 

[Highrise Tower]

Buffalo Point/Holmes Road Wastewater Line

https://harriscountyrda24.org/buffalopoint/

The agreement known as Buffalo Point was executed 11/20/2014 for a participation amount of a maximum contribution of $3.5M for the purpose of constructing a wastewater line in conjunction with the paving improvements for Holmes Road, a designated major thoroughfare. This proposed infrastructure improvement opened approximately 1,300 acres within TIRZ area boundaries that could not previously obtain a building permit for wastewater services. Again, the purpose of creating TIRZ 24 was to open development opportunities to over 4,000 acres of vacant or underdeveloped acreage, in the southern area of the Zone, due to a lack of suitable infrastructure. This TIRZ investment will generate new taxable property values that “but for” the TIRZ investment otherwise would not have occurred in a timely manner within the service area.

[Highrise Tower]

Noticed this along Buffalo Speedway.

[Highrise Tower]

Listening, reading rather, to the State of Texas Medical Center 2022.  Bill McKeon said: TMC Bioport will be the home of our bio manufacturing. This will be a new 500-acre campus and we are still in the due diligence phase. We believe this alone will add another 1000,000 jobs. 

Where exactly do they have 500 acres close to the medical center? Wishful thinking; are they grabbing up the Buffalo Speedway land?

By the way, did the TMC3 campus just officially get rebranded at TMC Helix Park?  "TMC3 is now TMC Helix Park which will become the new city center for TMC"

[Houston19514]

43 minutes ago, Highrise Tower said:

Listening, reading rather, to the State of Texas Medical Center 2022.  Bill McKeon said: TMC Bioport will be the home of our bio manufacturing. This will be a new 500-acre campus and we are still in the due diligence phase. We believe this alone will add another 1000,000 jobs. 

Where exactly do they have 500 acres close to the medical center? Wishful thinking; are they grabbing up the Buffalo Speedway land?

By the way, did the TMC3 campus just officially get rebranded at TMC Helix Park?  "TMC3 is now TMC Helix Park which will become the new city center for TMC"

How do you listen/read this report?  Do you have a link?

[Highrise Tower]

2 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

How do you listen/read this report?  Do you have a link?

The GHP and TMC social media accounts were updated every few minutes.  I was planning on doing a screenshot of the TMC Bioport tweet but the bank blocks the website. See below for GHP's Twitter account where you can read about it. 

https://twitter.com/GHPartnership

In two weeks GHP will upload the State of TMC 2022 to YouTube. Hopefully new renderings of projects will be revealed at that time.

Regarding the TMC Bioport project, I'm also hoping the 500-acre campus is not located outside of the city.  There are thousands of acres available at that point. I just don't know where they can get 500 acres. The area that I have in mind is Buffalo Speedway, Holmes Road, and West Airport. The University of Texas is selling hundreds of acres in that area, and UT is already established with the TMC due to MD Anderson and UTHealth.  Seems like an easy (or familiar) land swamp.

[Highrise Tower]

TMC CEO unveils Plans for Growth of Texas Medical Center as a Leading Life Science Corridor

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20220920006149/en/TMC-CEO-unveils-Plans-for-Growth-of-Texas-Medical-Center-as-a-Leading-Life-Science-Corridor

With a vision to become the world’s most comprehensive life science ecosystem, TMC is anchored by four districts – the TMC Medical Campus, TMC Innovation Factory, TMC Helix Park, and the newly announced TMC BioPort.

BioPort is TMC’s newest initiative and will serve as the Texas Medical Center’s biomanufacturing and medical supplies distribution engine. The district will span several hundred acres driving the much-needed repatriation of critical medical supplies and new cell and gene therapies. In addition, TMC BioPort will provide on-site upskill training center, creating over 100,000 new job opportunities for residents in the Greater Houston region. This vital initiative is aligned with the expectation that the US will significantly increase its biomanufacturing capacity to assure ready access to pharmaceuticals, therapies and medical supplies.

[CREguy13]

I have no knowledge, but I would put all my money on this being the Buffalo Speedway site.  There are many bio-manufacturing companies already in the immediate area along Fannin and Kirby.  This is a no-brainer for all parties assuming they can agree to terms.