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Houston19514

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  • 1 month later...

Does anyone know/heard any rumors about what Exxon paid Springwoods for the 385 acres purchased in Spring?

Welcome to haif! There's actually already a thread about the ExxonMobil campus on the same page. Here ya go.

Edited by Triton
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  • 3 weeks later...

I heard over the weekend that ExxonMobil will not be moving the corporate headquarters to Houston but that this new campus will bring a very significant number of ExxonMobil employees into Houston from outside of Texas. The numbers I heard were much larger than I expected. This is great news for Houston.

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I'm forever amazed at the annexation/anti-annexation arguments. The amount of mis-information relative to the awesome sum of experiential evidence is somewhat stunning. I think the problem is that the pro-annexation crowd can't get over the myth that those who live "in county" somehow manage to receive "free" services from the COH that the residents of COH pay for but aren't compensated for. Whether or not the concerns alluded to are legitimate isn't something I can validate; it's a topic that arose in the thread. It's possible that the COH might see that again, the low property values wouldn't compensate them for the services they'd have to provide and do one of their "strip annexations" up the feeder of I-45 to take in the Exxon office park.

What I find somewhat amusing is this thought that we get the benefit of HPD without having to pay for it as though HPD was a benefit. HPD is the problem, not the benefit. Or to put it another way, we get the benefit of HPD being virtually non-existent in the form of roaming criminals who eventually run afoul of the law in the County jurisdiction. "Getting Annexed" means that we get what they got in Kingwood. Fire and Ambulance service that can't find the residences and Barney Fife, three half days a week in a Blue & White who sees it as his job to pass out tickets to the unsuspecting on Kingwood Blvd. It would be hilarious if it weren't for the fact that there have already been reported deaths of people waiting for bambulance service, (I have a friend who lives in Kingwood who will regail anyone in earshot of the horror stories). What actually happens is that once an area is annexed by COH, it's as though it's been roped off. Emergency calls are bipassed by Sherrif and PCT. 4 because HPD/HFD are now seen as first responders. So the only way around this is for those neighborhoods that can, continue with the same contract constabulary service they paid for before Annexation, but..............for whatever reason, and I suspect it's turf war problems, the response times go way, way up. If you really want to see the benefits of annexation.......take a trip to Willow Brook mall. It's not Westwood yet......but it's getting there fast.

Having said all that I don't have a dog in this hunt; I only live in Spring because the house is paid for and with only a few work years left there's little reason to move. Upon retirement, we'll sell the place and move permanently to the Hill country. My hope and prayer for those of you who live in COH is that one day, maybe, (but I won't hold my breath), you'll get a Mayor that will see services as a priority and not a problem.

Services are a priority... especially for the current mayor. But the problem is that everyone in Texas is cheap and they want something for nothing. If we want more policemen, better roads, more frequent and reliable transit etc., the city has to make more money. The only way for the city to make more money is for us to pay higher taxes. HPD is severly under-staffed, and they're not about to go and find more officers until we start footing some of these bills. I wish we were paying higher in sales tax or something... as long as the money is put to good use.

Edited by totheskies
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Services are a priority... especially for the current mayor. But the problem is that everyone in Texas is cheap and they want something for nothing. If we want more policemen, better roads, more frequent and reliable transit etc., the city has to make more money. The only way for the city to make more money is for us to pay higher taxes. HPD is severly under-staffed, and they're not about to go and find more officers until we start footing some of these bills. I wish we were paying higher in sales tax or something... as long as the money is put to good use.

Well IF my aunt had balls, she'd be my uncle. The problem is money is rarely allocated for public services and when it is, it is not sufficient to keep up with the influx of residents (140,000 new people in 2009 alone). Rather, they want to build ANOTHER stadium for a soccer team that few in this city care about (relative to baseball or football--this is not a jab at soccer).

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I heard over the weekend that ExxonMobil will not be moving the corporate headquarters to Houston but that this new campus will bring a very significant number of ExxonMobil employees into Houston from outside of Texas. The numbers I heard were much larger than I expected. This is great news for Houston.

Was hoping for ExxonMobil to return to Houston. Would have been nice (and still seems to be a possibility). I can see why they wouldn't want to move though.

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  • 5 months later...

.......a little bird told me that a staging area for construction is built with a large crane in place at the proposed exxon location. could this be something other than what we think?

Anyone on HAIF have a helicopter they could use to go scope this out? :P I'm sure it's not visible from the freeway if true, I know I have not seen any activity.

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ExxonMobil should make a formal announcement early next year on their plans for the campus. At this time they have not finalized exactly what branches will close and move to the Spring location. Likely they will not move the present Dallas and Houston offices

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So the idea is for the Coventry development to serve as sort of a company town for Exxon? Gee.. :huh:

That's speculation but it is odd that they chose this track of land to build on--conviently located behind the Exxon campus. If it's not a part of it, they certainly plan on capitalizing on it.

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Here are some articles about the move/expansion:

http://frontburner.d...ying-in-irving/

I wouldn't completely rule out an HQ move, though it is unlikely. A new shiny corporate campus, with an entire master-planned community (and VERY nice one at that) built right behind it? That may entice a move from Irving, where there are hardly any Exxon employees compared to Houston.

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I wouldn't completely rule out an HQ move, though it is unlikely. A new shiny corporate campus, with an entire master-planned community (and VERY nice one at that) built right behind it? That may entice a move from Irving, where there are hardly any Exxon employees compared to Houston.

Yes but the Irving employees are mostly top management, and the rank & file here would be very uncomfortable with them looking over their shoulders. Lots of political implications.

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bummer. now it looks like DFW's fortune 500 list is equal to or even may surpaass ours. We just lost Continential. It's looking like a dark time for Houston!

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Exxon has a MUCH larger presence in Houston than it does in DFW. The headquarters would have been a nice feather in our cap, but unless Exxon releases that its 27,000 Houston employees (out of 82,000 employees worldwide) from the Upstream Division Headquarters (provides about 70% of operating revenue per year for the company) are moving out of town, then this is no big deal.

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The likelihood of Exxonmobil moving it's corporate HQ from Dallas to Houston as part of the proposed campus has always been slim to nil. This doesnt have any bearing to the proposed campus just south of the woodlands which has always been reported to be primarily for the upstream portions of the company. The spring/woodlands campus is still being studied with no official word.

The recent reports of a housing subdivision being built in the vicinity of or next to the proposed campus is interesting. Various newsclips suggest uncertainty about who is actually building the reported subdivision. With Exxon's desire for security cited as one of the reasons for the proposed site on a large piece of undeveloped land, having a large housing subdivision right next to it wouldnt be ideal.

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Or quite the opposite...perhaps it was scrapped because Springwoods Village intentionally chose that location because word was leaked about the Exxon Campus going in at that location. I bet they tried to capitalize on it, like The Woodlands, to have a fortune 500 company in its 'downtown' area. I wonder if that would have scared Exxon away?

Edited by wxman
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Or quite the opposite...perhaps it was scrapped because Springwoods Village intentionally chose that location because word was leaked about the Exxon Campus going in at that location. I bet they tried to capitalize on it, like The Woodlands, to have a fortune 500 company in its 'downtown' area. I wonder if that would have scared Exxon away?

completely misleading post... nothing is said of the consolidation and campus near the woodlands being scrapped, only that the official XOM HQ would not be moving here. the 4M SF (or whatever # it is now) campus is happening, it just won't be XOM HQ.

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The recent reports of a housing subdivision being built in the vicinity of or next to the proposed campus is interesting. Various newsclips suggest uncertainty about who is actually building the reported subdivision. With Exxon's desire for security cited as one of the reasons for the proposed site on a large piece of undeveloped land, having a large housing subdivision right next to it wouldnt be ideal.

The proposed development is more like an 'edge city' than a subdivision. And considering that the actual site of the XOM campus is about 400 acres, that's plenty enough to provide for adequate security, future growth potentials, and to integrate access to the mixed-use area as an amenity. I'd be surprised if the announcement of Springwoods Village wasn't an overt attempt to sway XOM to decide in favor of the campus; I'd be positively flabbergasted if the Springwoods idea backfired.

I can't echo the sentiments of Kinkaid, zandago, and stwig enough! Plans for the XOM campus have not necessarily been scrapped. They were never made official in the first place.

Will wxman or a moderator please change the title of the thread?

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