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The financial industry is down and New York is starting major projects all over town. Oil is down and Houston continues to grow and boom. Hollywood blockbusters are down and in LA it's still 'action'. Major cities are no longer bound by their signature industry if they are diversified, as New York, Houston and LA all are. They have all hit that critical mass. Financial is down, but NY still has media, fashion, the Arts, tourism, ad/marketing industry, and other big business, etc. Oil is down, but Houston still has medical, tech, bio/pertochemical industry, manufacturing, the Arts, the Port, and other big business, etc. Hollywood is down, but LA still has manufacturing, the Arts, tourism, ad/marketing industry, and other big business, etc. Additionally, all three are major retail hubs (Houston's retail sector is currently expanding off the charts). There's a lot going on in these major cities besides their signature sector. Because they all have other powerhouse economic sectors they can well afford to be gutsy, especially when it's only a matter of time before their signature sectors begin to roar again. Good 'ole America.

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brilliantly and eloquently stated!

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The financial industry is down and New York is starting major projects all over town. Oil is down and Houston continues to grow and boom. Hollywood blockbusters are down and in LA it's still 'action'. Major cities are no longer bound by their signature industry if they are diversified, as New York, Houston and LA all are. They have all hit that critical mass. Financial is down, but NY still has media, fashion, the Arts, tourism, ad/marketing industry, and other big business, etc. Oil is down, but Houston still has medical, tech, bio/pertochemical industry, manufacturing, the Arts, the Port, and other big business, etc. Hollywood is down, but LA still has manufacturing, the Arts, tourism, ad/marketing industry, and other big business, etc. Additionally, all three are major retail hubs (Houston's retail sector is currently expanding off the charts). There's a lot going on in these major cities besides their signature sector. Because they all have other powerhouse economic sectors they can well afford to be gutsy, especially when it's only a matter of time before their signature sectors begin to roar again. Good 'ole America.

 

HTXUSA, you are making the same argument that was made in September 2014 when people couldn't believe that oil would affect the Houston real estate market. The growth rate has fallen substantially and we are actually in a net loss of jobs since December. The reality is that development starts have fallen dramatically and we don't even check the development maps for downtown, for example, that much anymore because not a lot of developers are proposing any new projects. In fact, we rarely see new projects come to the table in the Houston market in general now unlike the weekly dose of new development announcements we saw in 2013/early 2014. We will still see random projects start here and there and I absolutely hate to be that negative person ever since oil dropped last year, but at the same time I think we need to be realistic with ourselves... CBRE is even forecasting a tough time ahead for Houston and they are very thorough in their market analysis. Even NYC got hit severely in its real estate market when the financial crisis reached its peak late 2008/early 2009. It's just the normal business cycle... Don't worry, we'll get through it and the projects we are building now will make Houston stronger for its future.

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I'd be delighted to see this project move forward.  The article indicates that Hanover has enjoyed a stronger-than-expected year and therefore may feel there is premium demand to warrant commencing construction on this project--even going so far as to suggest that delays in the project would actually be a result of continuing high prices for labor and materials for construction. 

 

However, strong fundamentals for one project do not necessarily mean the fundamentals will be there for others at this time. There appears to be pent-up demand for mid- and high-rise condominiums in Houston. We may yet see more announcements for those.

 

Announcements for new office projects have slowed noticeably. The Chevron tower appears to be in deep hibernation.  800 Bell's future is undecided at this time.  I agree that Houston's size will dull the blow from the worst of a down cycle, but we do appear to be entering a slower development phase (particularly for office).

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Lol, oh dear chicken-little, the financial markets and oil are down. Let's shut New York and Texas down and move to Canada. Some people just love and live for bad news. The gloom and doomers are personally miserable/negative and want everything else to join them. Not! Get a grip. America isn't going anywhere...we're going to 'Make America Great Again'.

I don't love bad news and this city isn't doomed at all... But to think we have reached some "critical mass" where growth is endless and we'll be building 60 story towers in the next few months, you're probably living in a fantasy land. Is it not obvious that things have slowed down in the real estate market? How can you answer for the net job loss? I want the boom we saw in 2013/2014 to keep going on. I want to see our downtown completely transformed into a true urbanist's wet dream.. where there's an active street scene no matter what time of the day it is. And as for being realistic, Trump doesn't have a chance in hell in winning the nomination but I digress.

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Lol, oh dear chicken-little, the financial markets and oil are down. Let's shut New York and Texas down and move to Canada. Some people just love and live for bad news. The gloom and doomers are personally miserable/negative and want everything else to join them. Not! Get a grip. America isn't going anywhere...we're going to 'Make America Great Again'.

Ohhhhhhh! Oh ok, your post makes sooo much more sense now...Didn't realize we had some Trump c0ckgobblers here at haif!

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I don't love bad news and this city isn't doomed at all... But to think we have reached some "critical mass" where growth is endless and we'll be building 60 story towers in the next few months, you're probably living in a fantasy land. Is it not obvious that things have slowed down in the real estate market? How can you answer for the net job loss? I want the boom we saw in 2013/2014 to keep going on. I want to see our downtown completely transformed into a true urbanist's wet dream.. where there's an active street scene no matter what time of the day it is. And as for being realistic, Trump doesn't have a chance in hell in winning the nomination but I digress.

 

Actually, it isn't yet obvious that things have slowed down in the real estate market..., well because, they haven't.  There's cranes still everywhere you look.  We're probably at the absolute peak in terms of projects getting built and completed right now.

 

Sure office 'starts' have evaporated and many cranes are coming down but the mega office projects (Exxon, Conoco, Phillips 66, Shell, BHP Billiton) are all just now being completed with downtown's 609 Main just reaching its midpoint. Even when a crane does come down, construction still continues on a building for another 6-12 months.  I think it's important to note that even if oil was still at $100 barrel it would be time for Houston to chill on office development with all the projects coming online. We just had a peak of 17-18 million sqft of office space under construction, all at one time - 1/6th of the total office construction under development in the entire country by some reports.  Let's consider ourselves blessed, we got in on a MASSIVE construction boom this cycle.

 

Residential, retail, and hotel development is still continuing at a break-neck pace.  Hopefully Hanover can start this project within the next few months.  Developers will continue to start projects until the capital dries up and they're denied construction loans but even in down markets, projects with solid fundamentals will still get built.  

 

Since it generally takes 18-24 months for most projects to be completed after breaking ground, real estate lags the job market by roughly 2 years.  Remember when Houston started creating jobs again in mid 2010-2012, development didn't really kick into high gear until late 2012.  With things slowing down economically in 2015, we should expect to see some real softness in 2017 in terms of development, its just part of the natural development cycle, but for now things are still blazing ahead. 

 

It's interesting hearing the different perspectives of HAIFers, but I really don't see much to argue about.  I suspect Triton is a forward thinker and HTXUSA lives in the here and now.

Edited by 'Stonian
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Actually, it isn't yet obvious that things have slowed down in the real estate market..., well because, they haven't.  There's cranes still everywhere you look.  We're probably at the absolute peak in terms projects getting built and completed right now.

 

Cranes are a bad indicator. You can't tell anything based on current projects. A good portion of these projects started before the volatility in the oil market occurred. And there's no sign at all that any of these projects are just going to stop mid-construction... we are nothing close to a Las Vegas type collapse at this point... not close by a long shot. Starts are a strong indicator of how attractive a real estate market is. And I'd actually disagree about the $100 barrel and the correlation with office... I think we would have clearly seen Chevron, 800 Bell, and the Capitol building start earlier this year if it weren't for the slide (And perhaps HC6 but that's another story). I guess I just disagree that things are still blazing... only a handful of projects have kicked off in the past couple of quarters. Again, we're going to get a few random proposals here and there but nothing at the rate we saw in 2013/2014.

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Well it appears you're focused solely on office development and I'm thinking more in terms of the overall real estate market.  If starts were the best indication for how attractive a market is, then San Francisco would not be the stellar performer that it continues to be since they severely limit starts with strict regulations and high cost of entry.  I do not disagree that starts are cooling off, my point was it's not obvious to the casual observer.

 

Sure Chevron may have gotten built, but even with $100 oil, based on historical cycles, it would have been wise for Houston to chill on office development with the recent office boom.  My guess is that developers would not have been smart about it, but sometimes the market forces them to make wiser decisions.

 

800 Bell will end up being a Class-B redevelopment at best and I suspect Capital tower is a go.  Skanska is using their own money to fund construction and have already expended a considerable amount of capital with all the demolition, so I think they will finish the deal eventually. There are 2 cranes up at the site and even though there's been no official announcement, I suspect they are proceeding at a snails pace with the overall building in addition to the garage. 

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Well it appears you're focused solely on office development and I'm thinking more in terms of the overall real estate market.  If starts were the best indication for how attractive a market is, then San Francisco would not be the stellar performer that it continues to be since they severely limit starts with strict regulations and high cost of entry.  I do not disagree that starts are cooling off, my point was it's not obvious to the casual observer.

 

No, just mentioned office since you brought it up about $100 oil. And yes, that's quite an excellent point about starts and San Francisco. Didn't say its the best indication (I imagine best is the value/price placed on development) but new projects breaking ground do say a lot about a market... Home prices are still going up so there is still positive news in the Houston real estate market. Not for buyers of course but for sellers, it's still great.

 

 

 

 Who knows, by 2017 job growth could be ramping back up with developers dusting off some shelved project plans for completions in 2019.

That's my hope actually. 

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Construction is a lagging indicator of the market since it reacts. And just because they're starting new projects doesn't mean it's wise to. I'm all for moving ahead on a few projects with anticipation that the economy will be recovered once it is completed, but it's probably bad if there are waves of companies doing it.

Gutsy or unwise, guess it depends what you think will happen.

Iran coming onto the market certainly won't help things.

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Here's an 'out of the box' idea for Houston: why not start attracting Biotech firms from high business tax locations, such as San Francisco, San Diego and Boston? With the largest medical center in the world, there is no excuse why Houston is not the Biotech capital. Also, how about vastly expanding Tech sector in general. There's no reason Austin and Dallas should attract most of these companies in Texas. Rather than sit around and wait for oil prices to rebound, Houston should become proactive with expanding within other sectors to fill office space.

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Here's an 'out of the box' idea for Houston: why not start attracting Biotech firms from high business tax locations, such as San Francisco, San Diego and Boston? With the largest medical center in the world, there is no excuse why Houston is not the Biotech capital. Also, how about vastly expanding Tech sector in general. There's no reason Austin and Dallas should attract most of these companies in Texas. Rather than sit around and wait for oil prices to rebound, Houston should become proactive with expanding within other sectors to fill office space.

I think the TMC is hoping to do that.

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In order for us to really become a force in biotech we're going to need to change the perception of our state. Our current leaders who deny basic science and have defunded higher education make luring firms hard cheese. 

 

We also don't do a great job of producing highly qualified people. Right now, Texas sees a brain-drain to places like MIT/Harvard/Tufts/BU and Cal/Stanford/UCSF. 

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Yeah that's exactly what's happening in the TMC now. Johnson Labs just opened their fourth JL facility outside of the major pharmaceutical cities.

 

I would REALLY like to see the Medial Center become a more mixed use district- high end TALL residential towers (al la NYC), shopping, restaurants to go along with the medical and hospitality uses. The Med Center is on par, or even ahead of downtown in terms of infrastructure, it borders our major city park, the museum district, and Rice University and may be more dense and walkable than even downtown...these are all HUGE draws for these supporting uses.

 

WE need to start thinking about Houston as individual nodes that WILL connect over the decades and I honestly feel the Med Center to Museum District to Mid Town to Downtown to EADO connection has the POTENTAIL to be a great urban collection if done correctly.

 

Uptown is a totally different animal and they are pretty adamant about remaining who they are (i.e. rejection of University and Uptown lines)

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I would REALLY like to see the Medial Center become a more mixed use district- high end TALL residential towers (al la NYC), shopping, restaurants to go along with the medical and hospitality uses. The Med Center is on par, or even ahead of downtown in terms of infrastructure, it borders our major city park, the museum district, and Rice University and may be more dense and walkable than even downtown...these are all HUGE draws for these supporting uses.

 

WE need to start thinking about Houston as individual nodes that WILL connect over the decades and I honestly feel the Med Center to Museum District to Mid Town to Downtown to EADO connection has the POTENTAIL to be a great urban collection if done correctly.

 

Uptown is a totally different animal and they are pretty adamant about remaining who they are (i.e. rejection of University and Uptown lines)

 

I see one potential practical problem with this. Constant ambulance sirens.

 

Are there other true medical districts that have residential woven into the district itself? I could envision it on the outskirts, but woven within? I have my doubts but I could be wrong.

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I see one potential practical problem with this. Constant ambulance sirens.

 

Are there other true medical districts that have residential woven into the district itself? I could envision it on the outskirts, but woven within? I have my doubts but I could be wrong.

Good point, although I've seen it work in other cities.  For example, Chicago's medical district in the Gold Coast/Streeterville area (i.e., Northwestern, etc.).  Residential, hotels, shopping, and hospitals all together (I don't know if they have a trauma center there though),  In my experience, if you're in a hospital room in the TMC, you don't hear the sirens, so I suspect the same would be true of apartments and hotels.

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  • 3 months later...

http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2015/12/02/houston-multifamily-developer-not-giving-up-on.html

Hanover had initially planned to close on the Upper Kirby property in January, but Hanover’s capital partners pulled their support, leaving the company scrambling to find new investors. Hanover first postponed the closing date to August, but it has since extended that to February. Solomon Cordwell Buenz, a Chicago-based architecture firm, is designing the project.

 

“Capital has been the issue,” Brandt Bowden, Hanover’s managing partner of capital markets, said in an email. “Several groups have reviewed the River Oaks project, but internal committees have had a hard time making a commitment to Houston in this environment.”

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What environment, a global metro approaching 7M? Houston isn't going anywhere and is no longer ruled by oil. Grow a pair and build it. This is not 1980.

 

It's been all that evil anti-Houston media. These investors don't analyse markets anymore... they relay completely on the haters Houston Chron and Biz Journals to make their decisions... they delve deep into the comments section as well. Oil doesn't affect this market at all... that's why office has been doing tremendously well and we'll likely see 20 new towers start construction in the next month... Keep watching the multi-family market.. it is sure to only go up, up, up and away cause we've hit critical mass!!!

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You're right, achieving critical mass is Houston's new trump card in the oil slump and sluggish US economy...we didn't have it in the 80's. Great diversification the last 30+ years allowed us to avoid collapse this time; we're 35% oil now vs 75% in the 80's. When you factor in the explosive population growth of an additional 3M people since then, hitting critical mass has not made us completely immune to the slump/US slow down, but it has greatly mitigated its effects. That's why we continue to grow in spite of whatever oil does. Many developers/businesses understand this and continue with business as usual, some are slow to understand and may regret it. And of course Houston haters everywhere like to spew oil fears as if it was 1980 again to try to bring Houston down. But haters be damned: ground continues to break...and cranes keep flying.

Source for that 35% claim?

I wasn't going to reply but come on you can't seriously believe your own lies can you? It's fine to be prideful and dislike any negative press or trash talk on the internet but in order for you to be successfully armed for a reply against some hater you need to have sources and correct information. Otherwise you are hurting your cause. And since this is our city too, you're hurting OUR cause.

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You're right, achieving critical mass is Houston's new trump card in the oil slump and sluggish US economy...we didn't have it in the 80's. Great diversification the last 30+ years allowed us to avoid collapse this time; we're 35% oil now vs 75% in the 80's. When you factor in the explosive population growth of an additional 3M people since then, hitting critical mass has not made us completely immune to the slump/US slow down, but it has greatly mitigated its effects. That's why we continue to grow in spite of whatever oil does. Many developers/businesses understand this and continue with business as usual, some are slow to understand and may regret it. And of course Houston haters everywhere like to spew oil fears as if it was 1980 again to try to bring Houston down. But haters be damned: ground continues to break...and cranes keep flying.

Yeah we've got to stop acting like everything is still bursting at the seams and just because the city is diversified doesn't mean O&G isn't the driver.  We can reference GHP and Mayor Parker, but it's their job to tout Houston in a way that is keeping investors interested.  While there is still activity in the market, ask anyone in the industry, particularly office, and they will tell you it is getting bloody and will only get worse.  2016 will be BRUTAL from a commercial office standpoint.  2012-14 everyone was doing 10-year deals (contracting more space than they needed) and lead-tenanting new buildings, now everything is short-term, short-term, short-term and for less space.  More new construction is delivering that is very little pre-leased or even 0% pre-leased and more subleases flood the market every week.

 

It will ramp back up eventually, but right now some folks are really hurting.

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Source for that 35% claim?

I wasn't going to reply but come on you can't seriously believe your own lies can you? It's fine to be prideful and dislike any negative press or trash talk on the internet but in order for you to be successfully armed for a reply against some hater you need to have sources and correct information. Otherwise you are hurting your cause. And since this is our city too, you're hurting OUR cause.

smh get out of here hater this just adds nothing to the convo we've got too muny h9rs running around in this thread it's time we take action against the fools, am i rite? 

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