Fortune
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Houston, the City of Houston, the Greater Houston Partnership, Houston First, Houstons leaders should all be embarrassed that Houston didn't even make it to the top 20. I really hope that this lights a fire, because Houston really needs to get its s**t together. There are to many backwards thinkers running Houston. There is no reason the UT campus should not have moved forward in Houston, there is no reason our mass transit should not be further along than it is. We need a more diversified economy!
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2 hours ago, 102IAHexpress said:
That would be the hope anyways. That area lacked major amounts of growth, as you call it, even when KBR was there. Remember, KBR in the 2000's wasn't exactly a mom and pop operation. They were one of the largest companies in the city and had a market cap of several billion. However, growth around Clinton drive wasn't exactly spurred by KBR. You would think that area had all the ingredients for growth, you had a major employer, new baseball stadium and new basketball arena close by, supposedly easy highway access, and everything else that has been mentioned in this thread yet the area failed to have a renaissance.
The typical HAIF response will be, but it will be different when "xyz" company moves in. "ABC" company that was previously there was, horrible, incompetent, etc.
KBR has 27K employees worldwide, 5.2K employees in the houston area. HQ2 will have 50K employees on site in one location. KBR only used the portion of the site with the office buildings on it because their employees were spread out through Houston. They had no need to hold on to the site because they did not need all of the space. At one point in time they were planning to build a new much smaller campus totaling 900,000 sqft in Katy to consolidate their 5.2k local employees. They ended up consolidating into their downtown tower which is 1.25 SQFT. HQ2 will be 8 million sqft.
That site was owned for decades by KBR there was no new infusion of employees or office space so why would their be a renaissance of the area at that time? Amazon would be bringing in thousands of jobs and millions of square feet of office space those are the things that would trigger a renaissance.
KBR and Amazon do not compare, so I don't know why you would think their affects on the surrounding area would compare.
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4 hours ago, jgriff said:
What amenities are within walking distance of the KBR site? A Yelp search for restaurants in the area pulls up a big fat 0. I don't see this as a realistic option for Amazon.
If the KBR site is chosen amenities would not be a issue. They would come to the area in no time. As a matter of fact the Seattle campus has its own 27 cafes/restaraunts in the Amazon buildings. If the KBR site is chosen it would be no time before that entire area bordered by Buffalo Bayou, Hirsch Rd, I-10, and 59 is redeveloped. It has already begun with all the new housing going up in area. Just look at Exxon and the affect it had on its surrounding area, and the Exxon campus is not anywhere close to the magnitude of the HQ2 campus.
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Houston could land Amazon's second headquarters
Usually, companies are relatively quiet about playing states and cities off each other to get the largest package of tax breaks and incentives. Not so with Amazon, which Thursday morning issued a public request for proposalinviting jurisdictions to submit bids for its second headquarters, including the amount of cash they'd be willing to pony up.
"The initial cost and ongoing cost of doing business are critical decision drivers," the RFP reads.
It's economic development as Olympic games: Interested cities decide how much money they want to spend for the privilege of attracting a lot of attention and new jobs. That way, the company has the maximum number of contestants to bid up the price.
Of course, Houston will want to play this game. And it definitely has a shot at winning.
"The city is very interested," said Alan Bernstein, spokesman for Houston mayor Sylvester Turner. "The city is checking on the procedures for officially being considered, and the city is excited and feels like it's well positioned for a number of reasons."
First of all, the economic development research shows that tax breaks are almost never the determining factor in a city's location decision. The chosen city will have to check all of Amazon's boxes before adding any incentives on top. Those are:
- Real estate. Houston has plenty of this — more than it needs at the moment, with contraction in the energy industry. Whole blocks of downtown are still either empty or underutilized, ripe for the kind of development that Amazon has embarked upon at its current headquarters in downtown Seattle.
- Labor force. Houston has plenty of people, and enough universities either locally or near by to feed its demand for software engineers, if computer science programs were significantly ramped up. It also has lots of expertise in shipping and logistics, which is a lot of what Amazon does these days.
- Connectivity. Amazon wants easy access to major highways and airports with direct flights to cities all over the country, which Houston has, along with a major port and rail lines. Traffic may be a problem, but that's probably true in most major cities under consideration.
- "Cultural community fit." Amazon defines this as diversity, a stable business environment, and government entities eager to work with large companies. Check, check, and check — especially the last part, which local officials have already demonstrated through handing out tax breaks for Amazon's two new distribution centers in the area.
- "Community/quality of life." This is something that Houston has been working on hard for the past decade, building parks and beautifying neighborhoods, recognizing that many companies view it as essential to attract today's workforce. It may not be able to match Seattle yet, but it's moving in the right direction.
In addition, Houston is close to Austin, which is too small for Amazon's requirements, but does have a wealth of technical talent and also the headquarters of Whole Foods, which Amazon now owns. Houston still has a housing cost advantage over many other large cities — while Seattle is showing the strain of accommodating Amazon's more than 40,000 workers, there's considerable room for dense housing construction in areas near downtown Houston.
Another criterion that Amazon puts high on its list: Sustainability. Bringing in Amazon, with its Pacific Northwesty ways, could be a catalyst for Houston to develop in a more resilient fashion — especially in the wake of Hurricane Harvey, which tested the city's infrastructure to its limits. Amazon will probably want to see continued investment in mass transit and a commitment to clean energy that the city hasn't yet totally demonstrated.
Now, there are all kinds of concerns about the value of Amazon to the nation and the world as it continues on its march to dominate retail, which may already be claiming jobs in the Houston area. But there's little doubt that Amazon would be a valuable asset for Houston, which has struggled to build a tech scene within a corporate culture still dominated by oil and gas.
The question is, how much should Houston offer the mega-corporation to lure it in?
It's frustrating, because Amazon clearly doesn't need the money — while the company is still not turning much of a profit, that's only because it's investing heavily in building market power by entering new shopping categories, such as groceries. Its shareholders' remarkable
permissiveness, as well as taxpayer subsidies of nearly a billion dollars since 2005, have made CEO Jeff Bezos one of the world's richest people.
Realistically, Houston — and Texas, with its bag of business attraction goodies — may need to make an effort. But it should have the self-confidence to recognize its natural advantages should be sufficient.
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Another Anchor Tenant Digs In At Greenspoint Mall Amid Talk Of Redevelopment
HoustonRetail August 17, 2017 Kyle Hagerty,
More questions have surfaced about the redevelopment of Greenspoint Mall, the 1.3M SF struggling retail center in one of Houston's roughest areas.
A representative of Fitness Connection, one of the mall's remaining anchors, said the gym has a lease through 2030 and has no plans to close. The rep said its Greenspoint Mall fitness center is one of the company's highest-performing locations.
That is a serious problem for the investors behind the redevelopment, Global Plaza Union, which has stated the deal is an "all-or-nothing kind of project."
A broker close to the deal tells Bisnow that the long-term leases do not have buyout provisions pending a sale and there are multiple other long-term leases that will cause serious problems for any future redevelopment.
Factoring in the other plans that two other anchors have for their site, there is serious doubt as to whether any major redevelopment will happen with the long-suffering mall.
Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/houston/news/retail/another-anchor-tenant-digs-in-at-greenspoint-mall-amid-talk-of-redevelopment-77910?rt=46067#ath?utm_source=CopyShare&utm_medium=Browser-
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Broker Behind Macy's And Dillard's Says Greenspoint Mall Redev Is 'Full Of flurf'
Read more at: https://www.bisnow.com/houston/news/retail/broker-behind-macys-dillards-says-greenspoint-mall-redev-is-full-of-sht-77797?rt=45921?utm_source=CopyShare&utm_medium=BrowserThe highly anticipated Greenspoint Mall deal may not be as done as many hope. Maddox Properties’ Jim Maddox, the broker behind the mall's Macy’s and soon the Dillard's, said he has no idea what the mall's investors, Global Plaza Union, led by Chinese developer Feng Gao, are talking about with their recently released redevelopment plans.
“I think it’s full of flurf,” Maddox said.
Maddox is behind the private investor who purchased the Macy’s earlier this year. The new owner, Spring Real Estate Investment's Zulfiqar Karedia, is planning to convert a four-acre tract along I-45 into a truck stop. Maddox is also representing a client buying the Dillard's, which went under contract last week and is set to close next month. Maddox has lined up a restaurant distribution user.
Reggie Gray, president of the Houston Intercontinental Chamber of Commerce and a partner in the mall redevelopment project, told the Houston Chronicle that Sears, Macy’s and Dillard's must agree to sell before any redevelopment can begin at the declining mall. Gray said the investors have approached each company with purchase offers. If they do not cooperate, he said, the "all-or-nothing kind of project" will fail.
But Maddox has other plans for the Macy’s and Dillard's. He has received offers and counteroffers for the space, but told the investors he is moving forward with the plans for the users he reps. His client is not looking to flip the property.
Maddox had not heard anything about a redevelopment either. When he showed the Chinese brokers repping Gao the Macy's space on Monday, they were talking about turning it into storage for a construction materials company, not a redevelopment, he said.
Maddox said he had a heated conversation with Gray after the meeting. Maddox explained to Gray that he had lined up two users for the anchor locations he represents.
“I said I might could move them if y'all want to buy the store, but he got all pissy with me about how we’re going to ruin the entire redevelopment of the area. I hung up on him. I don’t know what their deal is,” Maddox said.
Reggie Gray and reps from Global Plaza Union could not be reached as of press time.
As for Sears, Maddox said he has been in contact with its owners too about possibly buying it, but he said they were asking $4M, an absurdly high price in his opinion.
Maddox has spoken with the mall's operator, Triyar Cannon Group, which has reiterated it does not want the truck stop to go in, because it would detract from the sale of the mall.
“There’s no mall there anyway,” Maddox said.
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Aren't they planning on building a store on the Shepherd Plaza location as well?
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I'm curious about this as well. Bridgeland is being developed by Howard Hughes Corp. the same developer of The Woodlands. I wonder if they will include high rises in Bridgeland like they did in The Woodlands.
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I thought I remembered it being said that they were funding The Midtown themselves.
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Thanks for the info
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Did any kind of wild life live in that pond? Like fish or turtles
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Seems like this is taking forever.
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I wonder why UHD never acquired this property.
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1 hour ago, BigFootsSocks said:
Maybe it's those Skye Buildings we saw in that weird promotional vid a few years back...
Edit; Also is anyone getting those annoying ad redirects again? I would send a message but this is the first time I've gotten through to a post in a couple of days.
Yep everytime I come to the forum or try to click on post I get redirected to ingmatic.com. It's very frustrating.
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This is just the first high rise to go up. That land is to valuable to continue to be a one story shopping center. Before its over the entire center will be multi-level.
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If the oil market ever goes back up this will be built.
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I drove by the site last week. It has broken ground. At least one crane was up when I passed by.
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Wow you can really see how big the old post office site is from this photo.
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2 hours ago, Montrose1100 said:
Every time I pass this area I can't help but think about the original statement about all the trees and how they will play a vital role in the development but so far it's flat grass like every other suburban office complex.
Where the construction is taking place now the trees where cleared long before McCord purchased the land. So basically they started with a empty field.
I have lived in the area about 17 years. When I moved to the area the previous owner was going to build a neighborhood on the land called Summer Creek.
McCord has has planted hundreds of live oaks and other plants along the newly constructed portions of WestLake Houston Parkway and Lockwood Rd. as well as around the man made lake they created.
The thousands of pine trees they planted on their property on the other side of the beltway are still standing.
I'm sure once they complete construction on the buildings they are working on now, they will plant trees around them.
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5 hours ago, BigFootsSocks said:
So is this still being demo'd according to the title, or is it time for an update?
Also, off topic but is anyone getting redirected to ad pages on mobile? It's so irritating and automatically opens the App Store to download some bs app
Yes, I am. It's very annoying.
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My question is why are they renovating the interior of the mall instead of tearing it completely down ?
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On February 17, 2017 at 5:55 PM, swtsig said:
likely chevron chemical r&d facility if i had to guess.
They are selling that land, right ?
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If they could actually ever get this thing built I doubt they would have a difficult time leasing out the retail and landing the tenants they listed.
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Generation Park: Mixed-Use In Northeast Harris County
in Going Up!
Posted
They have started construction on these apartments:
http://generationpark.com/listing/residential/255-assay-st-luxury-apartments/