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Spaceport Houston Developments


trymahjong

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Under the agreement, which has yet to be approved, the city of Houston will pay up to $40 million for the facility to be built. The city will recover its investment through a 20-year lease agreement, officials said.

Why in hell is the city spending $40mil when this company could easily go out and bank finance the job themselves (or get a developer involved)?  I wasn't aware that our tax dollars are being used to fund commercial development....

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6 hours ago, tangledwoods said:

Why in hell is the city spending $40mil when this company could easily go out and bank finance the job themselves (or get a developer involved)?  I wasn't aware that our tax dollars are being used to fund commercial development....

Corporate welfare, the only welfare in America that's not demonized. 

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11 hours ago, jmitch94 said:

Corporate welfare, the only welfare in America that's not demonized. 

Your post and the prior one rather step on your point.  ;-)

In any event, it's a little short of "welfare" to lease a building out to someone at a price that will fully repay the costs (and at the end of the lease, the City still owns the land and the building).

Edited by Houston19514
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On 6/11/2021 at 9:21 AM, Houston19514 said:

Your post and the prior one rather step on your point.  ;-)

In any event, it's a little short of "welfare" to lease a building out to someone at a price that will fully repay the costs (and at the end of the lease, the City still owns the land and the building).

That’s assuming they stay in business and or hold up their end of the deal or even worse, aren’t granted more tax brakes in the future. 

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On 6/12/2021 at 9:40 AM, jmitch94 said:

That’s assuming they stay in business and or hold up their end of the deal or even worse, aren’t granted more tax brakes in the future. 

Even if they don't hold in business or hold up their end of the deal, that hardly turns this transaction in to welfare. The City would still not be giving the company anything.

And any hypothetical tax [breaks] that might be imagined in the future don't change the reality of this transaction. 

 

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On 6/10/2021 at 4:03 PM, tangledwoods said:

The city will recover its investment through a 20-year lease agreement

When it says the investment will be recovered, is that 2021 dollars or 2041 dollars? 

For example, $1 in May 2001 would be $1.52 in May 2021. So if that rate holds $40M now would be something like $91M in 20 years. (Someone please check the math)

  

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1 hour ago, 79ta said:

When it says the investment will be recovered, is that 2021 dollars or 2041 dollars? 

For example, $1 in May 2001 would be $1.52 in May 2021. So if that rate holds $40M now would be something like $91M in 20 years. (Someone please check the math)

  

Good question.  From the City Council minutes documents, it looks like the lease terms will actually provide for more than full cost recovery. First, at least in the first 10 years, there is a built-in escalator of 2.5% annually.

Second, the lease terms appear to add up to 145% cost recovery (plus the value of the annual escalators).  (2.5% per year for the first 5 years; 5% per year for the second 5 years; 10% per years for the third five years; and 11.5% per year for the fourth five years).

In addition to that, the lease will charge them an additional amount for the ground lease, based on a FMV set by appraisal.  

PLUS, the City has allocated up to $4 Million for planning and design.  If the company ends up not entering in to the lease, they will be required to reimburse the city for that.

Edited by Houston19514
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  • The title was changed to Spaceport Houston Developments
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A few smaller updates have occurred since early December.

With Intuitive Machines' and Collins' facilities under construction, Axiom's site is moving ahead in the planning stages and they expect to move their headquarters to the facility next year. Recently, Axiom awarded Jacobs a design contract for their assembly, integration, and testing facility's construction. The first pieces of the Axiom Station are expected to arrive in Houston from Italy in early 2023, according to Axiom's website.

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2022/01/07/has-iah-spaceport-construction.html

https://www.axiomspace.com/axiom-station

https://executivegov.com/2022/01/axiom-space-selects-jacobs-to-construct-facility-at-houston-spaceport/

 

The spaceport was awarded a $5 million grant from the state out of the Spaceport Trust Fund for infrastructure development (SpaceX's spaceport in South Texas was also awarded the same amount).

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/space/article/Abbott-grants-10-million-to-spaceports-in-16773595.php

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9 hours ago, asubrt said:

I didn't realize they were using the old Fry's Electronics building. It's a good 10-15 minutes from the spaceport.

I believe it's temp space just because they're growing insanely fast and haven't started construction on their campus at the spaceport yet

EDIT: I wonder if they'll make use of the ISS model inside 🤔

Edited by texan
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