TMC Helix Park: Texas Medical Center Bio Research Campus

[Highrise Tower]

TMC3 IB1 tower crane base has been installed.

[Highrise Tower]

Mixed-Use Garage has slowed down. Removing the crawler crane.

Industry Building 1.

Collaborative Building 4th floor.

 

[KinkaidAlum]

I appreciate you labeling the pictures. As an out of towner, I have trouble identifying what's what!

[hindesky]

[Ctaf]

Is TMC3 being built all at once, or has it been divided into different phases?

[Big E]

On 12/13/2021 at 10:16 PM, Ctaf said:

Is TMC3 being built all at once, or has it been divided into different phases?

Its being built in...like 3 phases if I'm not mistaken. However, all of Phase 1 hasn't started yet. The hotel and convention center is supposed to be Phase 1.

[Highrise Tower]

Industry Building 1.

[Lux]

Fitch Ratings - Chicago - 16 Dec 2021: Fitch Ratings has assigned a 'AA-' Issuer Default Rating (IDR) and bond rating to the following Harris County Cultural Education Facilities Finance Corporation taxable revenue bonds, issued on behalf of Texas Medical Center (TX):

--$93,725,000 Taxable Revenue Bonds, Series 2022.

The Rating Outlook is Stable.

The $93.7 million in series 2022 bonds will be issued as fixed-rate taxable bonds, proceeds used to fund two parking garages on the Texas Medical Center (TMC) 3 campus, fund capitalized interest through October 2023, and pay costs of issuance. The bonds are expected to price the week of January 10 via negotiated sale.

[more in linked Fitch Ratings article]

[CREguy13]

Wasn't able to snap a pic, but IB1's crane is going up today. 

[Highrise Tower]

9 hours ago, CREguy13 said:

Wasn't able to snap a pic, but IB1's crane is going up today. 

Tower crane assembly from today. They had to stop due to the storm.

 

[Lux]

One end of the TMC3 mixed-use building underground cistern is nearly encapsulated with dirt.

Future East Street connection to Wyndale Street (NE corner behind hotel & conference center / residential tower)

TMC3 Collaborative Building is picking up steam!

Across from Collaborative Building, the tower crane for IB1 stands tall.  The TMC3 Collaborative Building and IB1 are both scheduled for late 2023 completion, so rapid advancement on IB1 is expected for early 2022.

[Highrise Tower]

IB1 and CB.

[cougarpad]

UH has it's new Medical School and has future plans for having research facilities at the new Med Center Expansion.

 

Edited December 27, 2021 by cougarpad

[Lux]

Editorial: Houston's future is rising out of a VA hospital parking lot

The Editorial Board

Updated: Jan. 3, 2022 6:13 a.m.

Imagine a scientist, a doctor and a venture capitalist strolling into a Houston bar in the heart of the Texas Medical Center. They trade gossip and jokes over drinks until some offhand comment leads to an idea for the next lifesaving technology. On a table napkin, they sketch out a plan to prove that the technology works, testing it with volunteers from our diverse patient population so they can launch Houston’s next billion-dollar company.

Sound like a joke? Maybe. There certainly isn’t any bar like that now at the center of Houston’s giant medical center. And even if there was, few would probably be walking to it. Whether sidewalks or bridges or tunnels, pathways at the TMC are a notoriously confusing labyrinth. And, finally, the venture capitalist? TMC bylaws ban for-profit companies.

For all of Houston’s many medical world superlatives — and in terms of sheer size,the TMC is the largest medical research center in the world — it lags other hubs when it comes to launching billion-dollar start ups.

At long last, however, that could be changing. A new development called TMC3 that broke ground in September should help reposition Houston, and allow us to stop leaving the big money on the table. The master plan includes 5 million square feet of buildings with restaurants and shops on the first floors, organized around a series of parks resembling the double helix of a DNA molecule.

The architect planning this new venture is David Manfredi, the founding principal of the firm hired by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2009 to enliven Kendall Square in Cambridge, hailed as the iconic innovation district by the Brookings Institution in its report on the new geography of innovation. Kendall Square has incubated some of the most successful biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies in America. Among them is Moderna, the company that developed a lifesaving COVID-19 vaccine.

Moderna began as a partnership of Harvard professors and an entrepreneur at a biotech “venture studio.” The proximity of scientists and venture capital was critical to translating mRNA technology into our best defense against the pandemic. What about Pfizer? Their Cambridge research spaces are in Kendall Square, too.

What’s so magical about this place? In addition to bringing together many different educational, research and business enterprises, Kendall Square is hip. When the scientists aren’t experimenting on rats and the financiers tire of working their spreadsheets, they can relax together at parks, cafes, restaurants and bars.

Manfredi told the editorial board he knew he had succeeded when his three daughters made plans to go to Kendall Square and he wasn’t invited.

Houston’s efforts to recreate that kind of atmosphere are exciting, but success is anything but guaranteed. A medical center built up over more than seven decades won’t change quickly. Its own fascinating backstory reveals why change will be hard.

Back in 1943, Houston sold a 134-acre forested section of Hermann Park to the MD Anderson Foundation. With this land and funds from the foundation as as a local match, city leaders convinced Texas lawmakers to choose Houston as the site of the state’s first cancer center. Baylor College of Medicine relocated from Dallas as well and, in 1945, the Texas Medical Center was born. TMC manages the land, doling out pieces to 61 nonprofit member institutions that include Houston Methodist, St. Luke’s, Memorial Hermann, Texas Children’s Hospital, Ben Taub and others.

The high-rises we see today didn’t come about all at once. Initially, low-slung buildings spread out among the trees and along streets laid out like those of a gated neighborhood. As each institution grew, TMC allotted more parcels of land and built up parking garages. Each big institution established its own fiefdom. The overall result is a district with the scale and crowds of a big city but without the interconnectedness that makes urban areas work best.

Things have begun to change, however, and in 2013 TMC hired William McKeon as its new president and CEO. He had background in working with biotech companies and he soon made plans to throw for-profit firms into the mix. In 2014, the TMCx start-up accelerator launched in a repurposed Nabisco factory. Then, instead of allotting land to each of the TMC’s member institutions individually, he convinced them and commercial life sciences companies to commit to a master-planned innovation district on what was a set of giant surface parking for the Veterans Affairs hospital. He also created an exception to the ban on for-profit corporations. After an initial design by Gensler that envisioned the double helix, TMC brought on Manfredi, thanks largely to his experience improving Kendall Square.

The master plan calls for a radically transformed urban space where innovation, life-saving science and potentially billion-dollar developments all coexist. But to reach its full potential for transforming Houston, it will have to be more than just a successful island of urban life in the midst of a mess of parking, apartment, office and hospital buildings.

That’s where the city, county and TMC must all play their roles in stitching together the surrounding urban fabric, connecting them to transit and Brays Bayou paths.

The $1.8 billion first phase of construction is well underway and will include 950,000 square feet of research space, a hotel with upward of 500 rooms and 65,000 square-feet of conference space, a 350-unit residential tower and parks designed by Mikyoung Kim. The new streets have been poured. The construction of the TMC3 Collaborative Building is underway along with the unavoidable parking garage.

Houstonians already have reasons to feel pride in the TMC for what it is today. Medical discoveries are nothing new, including the recent success by a Baylor team lead by Dr. Peter Hotez and Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi that developed a patent-free, lower-cost, easier-to-produce COVID vaccine that is being manufactured in India. TMC3 could help open a new chapter in the center’s success, however, helping the whole region. It represents a pivot that could bring institutions together to form a greater whole in way that attracts investment capital, jobs and talent.

When the next global health emergency arrives, Houston’s scientists and entrepreneurs could launch the equivalent of the next Moderna. For all the turmoil of the last two years, decades from now Houstonians may well look back at these years as the moment when the city made a transition to a biotech hub.

[Highrise Tower]

 

[Houston19514]

22 hours ago, Lux said:

Editorial: Houston's future is rising out of a VA hospital parking lot

The Editorial Board

 

Decent article, but . . .  "VA hospital parking lot"?  Where'd they come up with that little factoid.  The site of TMC3 was Texas Medical Center patient and visitor parking and contract parking; served by TMC shuttles.  It was not a VA hospital parking lot.  How do they come up with the nonsense they publish?  Did someone glance at a map and see the big VA Hospital site somewhat nearby and just jump to that assumption (which in itself would betray a woeful ignorance of their city and one of its MAJOR entities/industries?)  Again I ask, is it really too much to ask local news folk to have some basic knowledge about their city?  SMH

Edited January 5, 2022 by Houston19514

[Lux]

4 hours ago, Houston19514 said:

Decent article, but . . .  "VA hospital parking lot"?  Where'd they come up with that little factoid.  The site of TMC3 was Texas Medical Center patient and visitor parking and contract parking; served by TMC shuttles.  It was not a VA hospital parking lot.  How do they come up with the nonsense they publish?  Did someone glance at a map and see the big VA Hospital site somewhat nearby and just jump to that assumption (which in itself would betray a woeful ignorance of their city and one of its MAJOR entities/industries?)  Again I ask, is it really too much to ask local news folk to have some basic knowledge about their city?  SMH

Yep.  The old south extension lots were not VA lots.  To the best of my knowledge, all VA lots reside east of Cambridge.  With that being said, I like that the Chron editorial board is an advocate for this transformative project.

[thatguysly]

A drone flight of this project would look really cool and show the scale of all the work.

[H-Town Man]

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

 

[hindesky]

On 1/5/2022 at 9:21 AM, thatguysly said:

A drone flight of this project would look really cool and show the scale of all the work.

One of the drone pilots that posts on here said he can't fly here due to software restrictions built into the drone. Is this correct info @cityliving @brijonmang?

[kennyc05]

1 hour ago, hindesky said:

One of the drone pilots that posts on here said he can't fly here due to software restrictions built into the drone. Is this correct info @cityliving @brijonmang?

 

1 hour ago, cityliving said:

I've tried flying around this project but because the Medical Center flight restrictions around where this project is located, it makes it hard to fly a drone around there.

Just rent a helicopter 🥱

[wilcal]

2 hours ago, cityliving said:

I've tried flying around this project but because the Medical Center flight restrictions around where this project is located, it makes it hard to fly a drone around there.

Thank you for actually following the rules! Pics are never worth putting one of those helicopters in danger. 

[thatguysly]

I didn't even think about that. Thanks for the info on the flying. I was aware of the airport and petrochem plant limitations but didn't even think about the medical air traffic.

[KinkaidAlum]

I just got back from my first trip to Houston since 2019. I stayed at the Blossom Hotel. What a quirky place. I really liked the rooms and that bathrooms and the air con was top notch!

FYI, the views from the 13th floor pool and deck of the TMC3 are quite nice. You really get a sense of the scale of the entire project. 

[phillip_white]

20 hours ago, wilcal said:

Thank you for actually following the rules! Pics are never worth putting one of those helicopters in danger. 

It's not hard to follow the rules when the aircraft's programming doesn't allow you to take off... 😁

22 hours ago, cityliving said:

I've tried flying around this project but because the Medical Center flight restrictions around where this project is located, it makes it hard to fly a drone around there.

The only way I've been able to get around this is to get off the ground before the satellites lock on. I think it limits you to around 50 feet, which is better than nothing (and not a danger to air traffic).

[Luminare]

23 hours ago, cityliving said:

I've tried flying around this project but because the Medical Center flight restrictions around where this project is located, it makes it hard to fly a drone around there.

There might be rules, but with every rule there is an exception. That exception would be finding a way to talk to higher ups on site or those building this, and pitch your flights as part of an advertising opportunity from which you would get a cut. All of this is of course hypothetically speaking. Maybe team up with @brijonmang? Just spitballin an idea. Remember where there is a will there is a way.

[brijonmang]

4 hours ago, Luminare said:

There might be rules, but with every rule there is an exception. That exception would be finding a way to talk to higher ups on site or those building this, and pitch your flights as part of an advertising opportunity from which you would get a cut. All of this is of course hypothetically speaking. Maybe team up with @brijonmang? Just spitballin an idea. Remember where there is a will there is a way.

The geo fencing has gotten pretty strict in the Med Center.  All of the helipads have been added to DJI databases as well as the fact there's class B airspace throughout and on the north side you have the approach for one of Hobby's runways.  You can do it but it's definitely a hassle and much more risky than flying just about anywhere else in the city.

[Highrise Tower]

IB1 and CB progress.

[Lux]

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

[CREguy13]

2 hours ago, Lux said:

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

I'm not too familiar with Pegasus Park, but after quick research I couldn't help but chuckle that it was in the same conversation as TMC3.  I'm all for collaboration if it helps bring more capital to Houston, but I genuinely don't think Austin and Dallas are remotely close to the potential that exists here.  Although I'm happy to admit my ignorance when it comes to their medical and biotech scenes.