H-Town Man

6 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

It would be a bit of a stretch to call Pegasus Park "nearly 1 million SF".

The website says it is over 750,000 SF. The document that mattyt posted says that the total SF amount includes "Future Development/Redevelopment." So it could be them. The total figure it gives is 998,304. Do we know of other campuses around Texas that could fit the description? What are the projected sizes of Levit Green and TMC3?

23 minutes ago, mattyt36 said:

Sure.

But:

(1) Is anyone really saying that the relationship between oil price and commercial space that existed between 2012 and 2014 still exists, COVID and work-from-home aside?

(2) How much vacant Class A space exists today for a company that may needs it for "flex" space during what could very well be a temporary market upswing versus building a new tower that costs hundreds of millions of dollars?

 (3) COVID

There is always a relationship between oil price and commercial office space in Houston, not just in boom times. This relationship has existed since roughly the time of Spindletop.

Flex space is industrial space. However, there is a lot of vacant office space. But there is always a demand for new office space among deep-pocketed oil industry tenants that is not affected by vacancy of older office space.

28 minutes ago, mattyt36 said:

 

I'm interested--do CRE professionals really believe this?

I mean the whole idea of (and entirely unironically, mind you) using Exxon's announcement as potential fodder for the Chevron skyscraper when Exxon just returned half a million square feet in The Woodlands in October?  I mean, c'mon.  It's not like they woke up last week and were all, "Hey, now that I think about it, let's move the HQ to Houston."  Needless to say, I don't see the logic.

Sure it'll help the market, but there's plenty of supply, and I don't see any sort of consensus view that this price increase is sustainable and has led to any increase (yet) in E&P spending.

Of course I'm not in either industry so what do I know?

I will only reply concerning the oil price issue, since that is all I commented on. No, there is not an increase (yet) in E&P spending. But buildings are planned a few years out. So with oil at $90, and talk of it going to $100, Skanska has to be saying, "Will the Houston office market be good in 2024 or 2025?" And if they think it will, they start planning the next building.

Remember that in the 2012-2014 boom, the peak oil price was around $105. And that got us about 20 million square feet of new office space.

1 hour ago, mattyt36 said:

Well that second quote is much more promising than the first (which I guess came from Alexandria Chairman Joel Marcus On Emerging Cities, Megacampuses And 'Hucksters' (bisnow.com)).  If their market outlook did change between summer 2021 and now, well the TMC must be doing something right.

According to the beginning of this article, which is behind a paywall, they just announced the purchase of a "nearly 1 million SF" biotech park in Texas for $402 MM. That sounds like it could be Pegasus Park. It looks like they have an office in Dallas, but not in Houston.

https://www.bisnow.com/national/news/life-sciences/alexandria-earnings-joel-marcus-111721

On 2/2/2022 at 11:23 PM, j_cuevas713 said:

Once those 4 lots in the background are developed, our skyline is going to be pretty damn big. I know Skanska already showed plans for the two adjacent lots. Every time I drive down 59 I'm amazed just how dense and large it's becoming. 

$90 oil, folks! I imagine Skanska is already pushing forward on planning for these.

1 hour ago, mattyt36 said:

Yeah, well, if an announcement like that is made, one would expect the local newspaper of record to at least put a blurb out there saying "Exxon announced HQ move, more to come" (HBJ had absolutely no problem in this regard) but they can't even seem to do that.  Took at least an hour just to put a banner up linking to someone else's story.  But their homepage has plenty of links from months ago, so color me not surprised.  Compare with the Dallas Morning News or any other major city newspaper not owned by Hearst (hell, the Star-Telegram is light years ahead).

So, I respectfully disagree.  I think it says they are a second-rate news organization.

That's fine. I don't think anyone considers them a great paper. It was nice to see that they finally won a Pulitzer a few years back.

Every major metro paper is much worse than it was 20-30 years ago, except for the 2 or 3 national papers. I would gladly trade today's Chronicle for the mid-90's Chronicle, which wasn't a great paper either, but it had vastly more information than today, and the classifieds were interesting. It's like discussing in 1970 which passenger railroad company is best.

1 hour ago, Houston19514 said:

Yeah, I recognize that, but Houston is the American headquarters and contains at least the bulk of what was formerly Standard Oil of Indiana and Standard Oil of Ohio, so I thought it was worth including.

We have the bulk of ChevronTexaco, too.

10 hours ago, mattyt36 said:

Wow, what does it say when the Chronicle doesn’t even write an article on this and instead outsources to Bloomberg?

https://www.chron.com/business/article/Exxon-Houston-headquarter-merger-oil-industry-16819683.php

I think it just says that they were still working on theirs.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/energy/article/Irving-based-Exxon-to-move-headquarters-to-Houston-16819300.php

1 hour ago, Houston19514 said:

 

There's not really anything more in the WSJ article than any of the others.

Not to mention Standard Oil of Indiana and Standard Oil of Ohio (BP) and Ohio Oil Company (another Rockefeller split-off, now named Marathon).  When Chevron gets their HQ to Houston, we will have gathered all of the major successor components of the original "seven sister" companies that were created out of the Standard Oil  split-up.

I don't consider BP a Houston company - based in London, no? I'm with you on Chevron, and what I really care for that's inside them are Texaco and Gulf.

This seems to be the article of record. Can anyone get past the paywall? 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxon-to-move-headquarters-to-houston-11643648706?mod=hp_lista_pos1

In 1907, IIRC, Jesse Jones persuaded Humble Oil to locate in Houston instead of Beaumont, but they were soon controlled by Standard Oil of New Jersey (later Exxon). Now the two greatest jewels in Rockefeller's crown - Standard Oil of New Jersey and Standard Oil of New York (Mobil) - are here.

The brown brick is pretty craptacular. Too bad those two houses were lost. 

13 minutes ago, corbs315 said:

Not really Mid-Main so not sure if it deserves its own thread buttttttt

insert *itshappeningronpaul.gif*

 

But will the slices still have that unforgettably slightly-above-average taste that you remember from South Congress, when it's not on South Congress anymore?

2 hours ago, feedvaulter said:

Couldn't find a topic on this, looks like some new mixed-use development is planned for the old Moncrief Lenoir manufacturing building across Lyons from St. Arnold. Cool old building, lots of potential. Can't find much detail on it yet.

https://www.loopnet.com/Listing/2103-Lyons-Ave-Houston-TX/20582228/

It's just for sale. Doesn't mean anything's happening. It's a great building and a no-brainer for some sort of loft renovation but other developments in the area like Warehouse District and the stuff on Navigation are better positioned location-wise. This will not benefit from NHHIP in the short-term, assuming that happens.

17 hours ago, dbigtex56 said:

A correct impression, IMO. 
The conditions that make Austin's South Congress Ave such fun also made Lower Westheimer a destination back in the day .
Unfortunately, unsympathetic development has eroded Westheimer's  density over the years. Every chain restaurant (I'm looking at you, Raising Cane's and McDonalds), every strip mall with parking in front, every vacant lot serves as a disincentive for pedestrians. 
I hope that future development can help sew the fabric of the street back together (and that Skanska doesn't take forever to start moving dirt).
 

That's too bad. I remember driving down this section of Westheimer (west of Montrose Blvd) in the past and it was always quite interesting. I once had a visitor with me say, "This is the real Houston." This time as I drove east from Shepherd, just as I started to say "Okay, here's where it gets good," I saw the McDonald's and my heart sank.

Edit - it looks like a McDonald's was always there, it was just rebuilt. Same with a couple of the other strip centers. Overall a lot of lateral moves in terms of density and walkability, except of course for MC.

2 hours ago, IntheKnowHouston said:

 

Unlike the previous site plans, the most recent retail brochure includes an updated site plan listing tenants and prospective tenants.

 

Food & beverage tenants 

• Uchi 

• Idle Hands

• Van Leeuwen (leased)

• La La Land (leased)

• Marmo (leased)

• Graffiti (leased)

• Chelsea Oyster Bar (leased)

• Picnik (leased)

• TBA bottle shop (in lease)

 

Retail tenants

• Reformation (leased)

• State & Liberty (leased)

• Eye Elegance (leased)

• TBA sustainable food wear shop (in lease)

• Amano (leased)

• Buck Mason (leased)

• TBA jewelry shop (leased)

• TBA jewelry shop (in lease)

• TBA jewelry shop (in lease)

• TBA women's apparel store (letter of intent)

• TBA women's apparel store (letter of intent)

• TBA men's apparel store (letter of intent)

• TBA athleisure store (letter of intent)

 

Services

• Hue Salon (leased)

• Sunluxe Tanning (leased)

• TBA nail salon (letter of intent)

• TBA med spa (in lease)

• Bayou City Smiles (leased)

• Ivirma (leased)

 

 

 

 

Have many of these tenants opened shop yet? A friend and I had dinner in Montrose when I was in town last week and I went by to see this, my first time since it's been built. We were both pretty impressed - my friend is not normally into architecture and had never been to Montrose before (lives in Sugarland) but sat down in one of the chairs on the patio and just took it in. The live oaks along Grant are fantastic. Only drawback was that the place was completely dead. When we walked back to Westheimer and were looking around at the shops along the street, he commented, "This place is like mini-Austin." Which I thought was funny but a little annoying, since I'm pretty sure Westheimer was what it is before Austin became what it is.

Everything along Westheimer east of the Montrose Blvd intersection looked pretty great, but when you look west across the intersection, the momentum all dies. Can't wait to see what Skanska has planned for the empty lot. This needs to be one of Houston's handful of walkable neighborhoods. Hardly any human life visible outside, although it was Sunday night so not the best time. The gas station at the northwest corner is a real shame but if everything else starts going vertical, maybe it goes away before long. The McDonald's at the corner of Yoakum is also unfortunate, I didn't remember it there. Ate at Acme Oyster House and it was fairly good but overpriced.

Honestly when we turned onto Shepherd from 59, that street hit me with "This is Houston and it is great," so much eclectic density. Westheimer east of Shepherd seemed less exciting, kind of listless. Just an impression though.

On 1/6/2022 at 1:31 PM, Houston19514 said:

Where have you looked?   ;-)

Watch Downtown TIRZ board meetings, Houston First Corp board meetings, I think even Midtown TIRZ.

Please cite where the money has been appropriated by TxDOT for a freeway cap structure. 

7 hours ago, Avossos said:

I am a bit disappointed that this continues to get leased up compared to the more interesting spaces around.

what I really want is the tower to start construction. Someone mentioned Hines is involved - is that true? I thought this was completely unrelated to Hines.

Yeah, last I checked the owner of this block was suing Hines for cutting off tunnel access during construction of Texas Tower. I hope Hines makes them a nice offer for this lot in the next few years, they've had almost a decade to do something here and have only managed a parking garage. Five other downtown office towers have either been built or broken ground since they've been trying to build this thing.

16 hours ago, Lux said:

https://www.texasstandard.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/01/Texas_BioTech_Triangle_01102022.mp3

Gosh, what a ditsy voice. A little irritating to hear "Austin, Dallas, ... and Houston." I don't remember them mentioning a single thing that was happening in Austin. As to Pegasus Park, yeah, no TMC3, only advantage is that the buildings are already built and thus can be leased fast and cheap.

On 1/4/2022 at 10:54 AM, arche_757 said:

Most that I’ve encountered.  There are exceptions.  Why?  What is your observation of architects?

I didn't see your response the other day. I have not met enough architects to have a really educated opinion. Johnson's personality does seem to be the trend for other superstar architects. Frank Lloyd Wright, for instance. 

What I like about Johnson is his passion. He travelled to see every important new building, especially in the early days of modernism (20's-30's). He was once asked in an interview, "How did you know you were an architect?", and he described visiting Chartres cathedral and the Parthenon at age 13 and being hit with overwhelming emotion, to the point where he was bawling, just sobbing. I like someone who can experience that and reveal it about themselves. Makes up for a lot of other faults.

On 12/27/2021 at 6:24 PM, swtsig said:

No insider info but a part of me thinks the scaled back plans mean they have bigger long term plans for the 4HC site. Granted, I'm talking 10+ yrs down the road but still. The problem w the building is that as currently configured they'll never be able to maximize rents, especially on office space, without a MASSIVE capital commitment, the kind of capital commitment that would make demolishing and redeveloping a more lucrative long term investment.

 

Just my opinion.

4 Houston Center is 986,000 SF and sits on two full blocks. Using the land price per square foot from the Skanska land sale, the land is worth at least $56 million, probably a lot more given the better location. But just taking the $56 million, the building would have to be worth about $57/SF or less for them to demolish, probably more like $50/SF to cover demo cost and entrepreneurial incentive. Best comp for the building's value is probably 1111 Fannin, which sold last year for $69/SF, although this building is probably worth a bit more (but so is the land).

So... yeah. In 10 years, as the building gets more obsolete and the land value goes up, this could be a redevelopment.

The editorial reads like a press release. Doubt the Chronicle contributed much more than the title.

52 minutes ago, Amlaham said:

Damn, they basically called what we consider luxury as "trash" 😂

Can you quote from the article?

16 hours ago, arche_757 said:

I’ve honestly grown to dislike him more and more every year.  His designs for Pennzoil, Transco and Republic Bank are iconic, and he certainly added some interesting buildings in other cities, but as a person he seems to be classic bespectacled-cape-wearing smarter/more enlightened-than-thou-architect.

Do you find that most architects are humble and unassuming?