Ion District In Midtown

[Sanjorade]

Apparently the entire leadership team of The Ion and Greentown Labs were let go last week. Guessing they weren’t able to attract enough renters. 

As a startup guy, The Ion is a nice idea but doesn’t actually deliver what most early stage companies need. There’s a major disconnect between the stakeholders and startup founders. 

Will be interesting to see what comes next …

 

[houstontexasjack]

2 minutes ago, Sanjorade said:

Apparently the entire leadership team of The Ion and Greentown Labs were let go last week. Guessing they weren’t able to attract enough renters. 

As a startup guy, The Ion is a nice idea but doesn’t actually deliver what most early stage companies need. There’s a major disconnect between the stakeholders and startup founders. 

Will be interesting to see what comes next …

 

What’s your source? I haven’t seen any news on this front.

[Sanjorade]

41 minutes ago, houstontexasjack said:

What’s your source? I haven’t seen any news on this front.

Through the grapevine, from multiple people close to the situation. 

[Fortune]

2 hours ago, Sanjorade said:

Apparently the entire leadership team of The Ion and Greentown Labs were let go last week. Guessing they weren’t able to attract enough renters. 

As a startup guy, The Ion is a nice idea but doesn’t actually deliver what most early stage companies need. There’s a major disconnect between the stakeholders and startup founders. 

Will be interesting to see what comes next …

 

Why would The Ion and Greentown Labs have a single leadership team? Aren't they two separate entities that are tenants of The Ion District? 

What do most early-stage companies need that The Ion does not deliver? 

[CREguy13]

2 minutes ago, Fortune said:

Why would The Ion and Greentown Labs have a single leadership team? Aren't they two separate entities that are tenants of The Ion District? 

What do most early-stage companies need that The Ion does not deliver? 

They are separate entities with different leadership teams.  If there were layoffs, maybe a restructure of moving folks around and eliminating some redundancy in roles.

Both Greentown and the Ion have been successful (exceeding expectations in many cases) in their missions from what I experienced as a renter at the Common Desk unless something has changed in the past few months... The Ion is pretty well leased up and Greentown is oversubscribed in member companies. Will definitely be on the look out for reports and may ping a few folks over there.

[Sanjorade]

50 minutes ago, Fortune said:

Why would The Ion and Greentown Labs have a single leadership team? Aren't they two separate entities that are tenants of The Ion District? 

What do most early-stage companies need that The Ion does not deliver? 

My apologies. They had two separate leadership teams. 

IMO, these orgs were more interested in touting the big name leases they signed.  No one on the leadership team of the Ion had ever built a startup.

One example of a disconnect is attempting to charge a freshly launched, bootstrapped startup to host a launch party on premise. Early stage startups barely have the funds to stay afloat and are trying to break through. 

The founder opted for another venue that didn’t charge and actually contributed to the very successful launch party. 

The whole thing just seems very forced, as is typical with academia and government. 

 

 

[bobruss]

On 5/21/2023 at 1:12 PM, bobruss said:

I've heard from reliable sources that this whole project is going to slow down. With Rice's new administration, and reorganization of Rices direction they are rethinking their future plans for Ion, and a hoped for master plan for  Rice's property in the Village.  They have released their real estate team and reorganizing their priorities. They have dropped RDA which has been an important community compass helping to guide the city in the right direction. Apparently this project doesnt fit in with the new direction Rice plans to go. I hope this isn't true but I do trust my source.

I believe I brought this up last May and no one believed that there was something askew.

[houstontexasjack]

I did find this story regarding appointment of a new vice president:

https://news.rice.edu/news/2024/rice-names-associate-vice-president-industry-and-new-ventures

I certainly would not be surprised if he let some people go and wanted to reevaluate aspects of the Ion District. So. I also noticed the norcity.io website for the food park that was proposed is just not operational. 

I’d be surprised if Rice abandoned the project altogether given the resources put into it. But, delaying and modifying plans as @bobruss indicated seems likely. The proposed 2024 start date for Phase 2 probably has longer odds than the Rockets winning the NBA Finals at this point.

[CREguy13]

15 hours ago, Sanjorade said:

My apologies. They had two separate leadership teams. 

IMO, these orgs were more interested in touting the big name leases they signed.  No one on the leadership team of the Ion had ever built a startup.

One example of a disconnect is attempting to charge a freshly launched, bootstrapped startup to host a launch party on premise. Early stage startups barely have the funds to stay afloat and are trying to break through. 

The founder opted for another venue that didn’t charge and actually contributed to the very successful launch party. 

The whole thing just seems very forced, as is typical with academia and government. 

 

 

Don't disagree with any of this. I think the Ion District has huge potential, but moreso a critical mass of later stage tech, energy transition companies, O&G low carbon teams and the capital providers for the transition.  There seemed to be a lot of Private Equity, CVS, and VCs that had set up shop there with more coming. The 'start up community' feel was never really there, much more corporate and academic as you've stated.

 

Honestly, I think the best thing would be for Greentown Labs to pick up their things and take their 80+ member companies to a warehouse (Somewhere like Ironworks would be ideal) in Eado/East End or the Heights. If the district is no longer aligned with Rice's vision, they should sell it to Hines and keep their academic programs/accelerators in the Ion.  There's huge potential here, just not necessarily for early stage companies.

[Sanjorade]

17 minutes ago, CREguy13 said:

Don't disagree with any of this. I think the Ion District has huge potential, but moreso a critical mass of later stage tech, energy transition companies, O&G low carbon teams and the capital providers for the transition.  There seemed to be a lot of Private Equity, CVS, and VCs that had set up shop there with more coming. The 'start up community' feel was never really there, much more corporate and academic as you've stated.

 

Honestly, I think the best thing would be for Greentown Labs to pick up their things and take their 80+ member companies to a warehouse (Somewhere like Ironworks would be ideal) in Eado/East End or the Heights. If the district is no longer aligned with Rice's vision, they should sell it to Hines and keep their academic programs/accelerators in the Ion.  There's huge potential here, just not necessarily for early stage companies.

It’s unfortunate for the startup community. We all got hyped about what was being proposed, just to be disappointed by the lack of real vision.

VC money typically doesn’t flow to Houston, simply because people don’t have the right mentality/strategy to building world changing tech. There are a few companies that are success stories, but there could be many more with the right leadership and resources.

I’m building my company in Houston, but spent many years learning how to do so from people elsewhere.  

Shiny new buildings rarely yield successful startups. Again, the Ion district is just a real estate play under the guise of being a place for innovation. 
 

 

 

[bobruss]

While this is disappointing, Rice is still going forward on a new master plan for the village and their western campus and stadium.

[houstontexasjack]

3 minutes ago, bobruss said:

While this is disappointing, Rice is still going forward on a new master plan for the village and their western campus and stadium.

Here’s hoping they consider a “Midtown Campus” for the Ion District. The business school could serve as an anchor, freeing up McNair Hall for more undergraduate class space. 

[hbg.50]

4 hours ago, Sanjorade said:

Again, the Ion district is just a real estate play under the guise of being a place for innovation.

Wasn’t the ION a direct response to being snubbed by Amazon (not even making the top 20 list)?

This is FAILURE akin to not landing ARPA-H.  

Let’s hope Whitmire has a vision for this city…
 

[TXK]

6 hours ago, CREguy13 said:

Honestly, I think the best thing would be for Greentown Labs to pick up their things and take their 80+ member companies to a warehouse (Somewhere like Ironworks would be ideal) in Eado/East End or the Heights.

East End Maker Hub offers this to some extent but has a wider scope of tenants and obviously a different business model than Greentown. A Greentown to EEMH pipeline would be great for the startup community (speaking from experience). Even if the innovation-centric development doesn't happen in Midtown, hopefully they can still grow the area right around the updated future transit center.

[j_cuevas713]

6 hours ago, bobruss said:

While this is disappointing, Rice is still going forward on a new master plan for the village and their western campus and stadium.

Rive Village or the ION District? 

[hindesky]

[X.R.]

On 1/22/2024 at 9:48 AM, Sanjorade said:

It’s unfortunate for the startup community. We all got hyped about what was being proposed, just to be disappointed by the lack of real vision.

VC money typically doesn’t flow to Houston, simply because people don’t have the right mentality/strategy to building world changing tech. There are a few companies that are success stories, but there could be many more with the right leadership and resources.

I’m building my company in Houston, but spent many years learning how to do so from people elsewhere.  

Shiny new buildings rarely yield successful startups. Again, the Ion district is just a real estate play under the guise of being a place for innovation. 

Sorry for the long post. I agree to an extent it was a real estate play by Rice, you got a sense from the interviews that there was a bit of "how can we expand the campus in a way that makes sense for us, while generating cash from using the endowment." From the brokers they've worked with that I talked to, I get a sense they aren't just handing out leases wanting just about anyone, but generally know what type of business/restaurant they want. So I disagree there was a lack of real vision. Now, if that vision leads them to eat poo, I can't speak to that.

We talked about it earlier in this thread, but this is still a Rice project and it still has to serve their interests, which is interested (to me) in maintaining or improving their current stature so to continue to attract the best talent. They have robust access to O&G and the med center is on their doorstep but their students miss out on Houston-based tech and startup scene. So they created it.

What they are doing to Rice Village I think is indicative of where they are going with the Ion. The village is being molded into an area that serves a particular type of Houstonian (think West U resident and successful rice alums), after decidely not being that for a long time. Similarly, the type of companies/startups they want to attract for the Ion to expose their students to is not your bootstrapped, could go bottoms-up startup but the types of companies their alumni are most familiar, and that compliments the types of opportunities they already offer students. I think thats reflected in the current mix of clientelle as @CREguy13highlighted, private equity, VCs, and the clean energy offerings from the O&G comapnies. Rice MBA funnels people into consulting, wouldn't be suprised if we see a Big 4 consulting open up there and the focus of that office is startups. Even the restuarants and bars have more in common with Rice Village than the offerings in Midtown. There is a vision, its just more Rice-centric than we had thought. 

[houstontexasjack]

17 minutes ago, X.R. said:

Sorry for the long post. I agree to an extent it was a real estate play by Rice, you got a sense from the interviews that there was a bit of "how can we expand the campus in a way that makes sense for us, while generating cash from using the endowment." From the brokers they've worked with that I talked to, I get a sense they aren't just handing out leases wanting just about anyone, but generally know what type of business/restaurant they want. So I disagree there was a lack of real vision. Now, if that vision leads them to eat poo, I can't speak to that.

We talked about it earlier in this thread, but this is still a Rice project and it still has to serve their interests, which is interested (to me) in maintaining or improving their current stature so to continue to attract the best talent. They have robust access to O&G and the med center is on their doorstep but their students miss out on Houston-based tech and startup scene. So they created it.

What they are doing to Rice Village I think is indicative of where they are going with the Ion. The village is being molded into an area that serves a particular type of Houstonian (think West U resident and successful rice alums), after decidely not being that for a long time. Similarly, the type of companies/startups they want to attract for the Ion to expose their students to is not your bootstrapped, could go bottoms-up startup but the types of companies their alumni are most familiar, and that compliments the types of opportunities they already offer students. I think thats reflected in the current mix of clientelle as @CREguy13highlighted, private equity, VCs, and the clean energy offerings from the O&G comapnies. Rice MBA funnels people into consulting, wouldn't be suprised if we see a Big 4 consulting open up there and the focus of that office is startups. Even the restuarants and bars have more in common with Rice Village than the offerings in Midtown. There is a vision, its just more Rice-centric than we had thought. 

“Rice Ion Campus” Do it, Rice. 

[Sanjorade]

24 minutes ago, X.R. said:

Sorry for the long post. I agree to an extent it was a real estate play by Rice, you got a sense from the interviews that there was a bit of "how can we expand the campus in a way that makes sense for us, while generating cash from using the endowment." From the brokers they've worked with that I talked to, I get a sense they aren't just handing out leases wanting just about anyone, but generally know what type of business/restaurant they want. So I disagree there was a lack of real vision. Now, if that vision leads them to eat poo, I can't speak to that.

We talked about it earlier in this thread, but this is still a Rice project and it still has to serve their interests, which is interested (to me) in maintaining or improving their current stature so to continue to attract the best talent. They have robust access to O&G and the med center is on their doorstep but their students miss out on Houston-based tech and startup scene. So they created it.

What they are doing to Rice Village I think is indicative of where they are going with the Ion. The village is being molded into an area that serves a particular type of Houstonian (think West U resident and successful rice alums), after decidely not being that for a long time. Similarly, the type of companies/startups they want to attract for the Ion to expose their students to is not your bootstrapped, could go bottoms-up startup but the types of companies their alumni are most familiar, and that compliments the types of opportunities they already offer students. I think thats reflected in the current mix of clientelle as @CREguy13highlighted, private equity, VCs, and the clean energy offerings from the O&G comapnies. Rice MBA funnels people into consulting, wouldn't be suprised if we see a Big 4 consulting open up there and the focus of that office is startups. Even the restuarants and bars have more in common with Rice Village than the offerings in Midtown. There is a vision, its just more Rice-centric than we had thought. 

This is definitely more in line w what Rice wants than what the startup ecosystem needs. 

IMO this will just lead to same status quo/laggard mentality that is synonymous with Houston in general.

The Rice and UH students won’t get a real taste of the startup ecosystem and thus will never be on the same level as those from, let’s say, Stanford. 

For a real startup ecosystem to emerge and get into orbit, bootstrapped big vision companies will have to want start and stay here. It likely won’t happen. 

The Ion District is going to turn into a shinier, more expensive version of what’s come before. 

It really is a pity. There’s so much potential here.

[X.R.]

3 hours ago, Sanjorade said:

This is definitely more in line w what Rice wants than what the startup ecosystem needs. 

IMO this will just lead to same status quo/laggard mentality that is synonymous with Houston in general.

The Rice and UH students won’t get a real taste of the startup ecosystem and thus will never be on the same level as those from, let’s say, Stanford. 

For a real startup ecosystem to emerge and get into orbit, bootstrapped big vision companies will have to want start and stay here. It likely won’t happen. 

The Ion District is going to turn into a shinier, more expensive version of what’s come before. 

It really is a pity. There’s so much potential here.

Agreed. From a real estate play standpoint, it makes sense however. As any development with heavy upfront capital costs they want to people who can sign 5+ year leases with great credit. They got those leases signed at a very respectable clip, and the lease rate is good. Real startups unfortunately do not have great credit and sometimes do not finish their lease.

But I think the potential is still there. They've gotten good leases, still attracting bigger name restaurants (a good barometer for the underlying economics being provided by the brokers), and their strategy guys probably have told them the land's value is going to jump with 59 buried, so there is comfort there. Money is probably stable. Now is the time to really see where it goes. Who knows, they could offer exactly what real startups would want in phase 2.

The problem @bobruss, is if it doesn't fit in the direction Rice wants to go, you can't just sit on your hands and you certainly can't sell for a while since TxDot is about to goose their property's value via the 59 work. If you stall out the project, or mismanage it, the midtown malaise will hit the development and then it REALLY wouldn't fit Rice's vision. If they don't want to set fire to their money, they will continue to develop and maintain and curate, just in a slower fashion. Edit: By far the saddest outcome would be if they sold it to some Rice alum private equity people, but the funniest is they sell it to UoH who only can buy it with partial funding/support from Tilman. The Ion, brought to you by Landry's.

Edited January 23 by X.R.

[clutchcity94]

On 1/22/2024 at 8:07 AM, houstontexasjack said:

I did find this story regarding appointment of a new vice president:

https://news.rice.edu/news/2024/rice-names-associate-vice-president-industry-and-new-ventures

I certainly would not be surprised if he let some people go and wanted to reevaluate aspects of the Ion District. So. I also noticed the norcity.io website for the food park that was proposed is just not operational. 

I’d be surprised if Rice abandoned the project altogether given the resources put into it. But, delaying and modifying plans as @bobruss indicated seems likely. The proposed 2024 start date for Phase 2 probably has longer odds than the Rockets winning the NBA Finals at this point.

If all else fails, they can convert it back to a Sears.

[houstontexasjack]

On a positive note for Greentown Labs:

https://greentownlabs.com/totalenergies-joins-greentown-labs-as-a-terawatt-partner/

 

[Houston19514]

I often wonder why Houstonians, especially HAIFers, are so eager to find failure.

Edited January 25 by Houston19514

[wilcal]

1 hour ago, Houston19514 said:

I often wonder why Houstonians, especially HAIFers, are so eager to find failure.

Average HAIFer

[Highrise Tower]

Noticed some oil testing going on today.

[Houston19514]

Oil testing?  What does that mean?

[HoustonIsHome]

38 minutes ago, Houston19514 said:

Oil testing?  What does that mean?

Prep for Shell station with attached corner store

[phillip_white]

1 hour ago, Houston19514 said:

Oil testing?  What does that mean?

I think it's a typo. Should be soil.

[HoustonIsHome]

Rice should go big in the next phase and build a 50 floor hotel/ condo tower. 

28 floors of condo/student housing, 8 floors of hotel, 2 amenity floors on 12 floors of parking, the ground floor of which with retail. 

That would make their project more attractive to business.

Redoing a grocery store, a department store and building a garage has been all low key. It's surprising that there y have had the success they have had.

[IntheKnowHouston]

Does anyone know when Common Bond On-the-Go closed in The Ion? It was located at 4201 Main St, Suite 110.