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Hopefully this will create jobs and stimulate more economic activity in the area...
In what may be a first in Houston, Brennan Investment Group has purchased a vacant office building in Greenspoint with plans to build a warehouse in its place.
The Chicago-based industrial real estate investment and developing company closed on 10.8 acres at 500 N. Sam Houston Parkway W. in late April. Aetna Life Insurance Co. had owned the property since 2016 after repossessing it from the previous owner, said Troy MacMane, managing principal at Brennan.
Brennan now plans to tear down the 16-year-old building and break ground in about three months on a 157,300-square-foot speculative distribution center for between one and four tenants.
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Originally Posted by ParaguaneroSwag
That office building looks like it was designed to be able to double as a distribution center. It’s not something that could be done just anywhere. It’s also not something I’d want to do just anywhere either though.
But office building to DC isn’t a Houston first here. A couple of the original Compaq sites for converted to industrial space. Microchip has a manufacturing center there. And Mexcor also has similar plans I think.
Note that they are not converting the office building into a warehouse. They are going to tear down the office building and build a warehouse on the land.
Note that they are not converting the office building into a warehouse. They are going to tear down the office building and build a warehouse on the land.
Which is somewhat unusual for an office buildings that's relatively new by Houston standards.
ehhh, it's a 2-story concrete tilt-up building in an area that has been evolving more into a warehouse district . . . pretty much a non-story.
I think I agree. Looking into it, it appears to be an awkwardly located office building next to a warehouse district with warehouses that look identical to that in the rendering. They’re taking down a small, failed office building and replacing it with something more viable for that area. Non story I agree
I mean. It’s cool. good proximity to the airport and all that. I’m sure there’s benefits to the air cargo traffic. But as you said, not really a blockbuster story line. There’s other bigger stories this week
I think I agree. Looking into it, it appears to be an awkwardly located office building next to a warehouse district with warehouses that look identical to that in the rendering. They’re taking down a small, failed office building and replacing it with something more viable for that area. Non story I agree
I mean. It’s cool. good proximity to the airport and all that. I’m sure there’s benefits to the air cargo traffic. But as you said, not really a blockbuster story line. There’s other bigger stories this week
It's a great location for distribution...I view this as a good step in the right direction...
ehhh, it's a 2-story concrete tilt-up building in an area that has been evolving more into a warehouse district . . . pretty much a non-story.
Oh, no question that North Houston's principal driver these days is warehouse / distribution, so no surprise economically. It's mainly that the area doesn't have a shortage of older office properties from the 1970s-80s that could have been acquired; a number of those properties have really terrible numbers and poor futures as office buildings.
Real estate heavyweights behind CityCentre, Greenway Plaza launch new firm to transform Sun Belt sites
Midway Holdings, Parkway Property Investments join forces into new Houston-based company
Two real estate heavyweights behind projects such as CityCentre and Greenway Plaza are joining forces to launch a new company that could deepen their investments in mixed-use developments in Houston and expand their reach across the Sun Belt.
Houston-based Midway Holdings and Orlando, Fla.-based Parkway Property Investments, both private companies, are merging their services platforms and teams totaling about 300 into one firm that will be headquartered in Houston. They’ll have co-CEOs (Jayson Lipsey and Jamie Bryant) and co-chief executive chairmen (Brad Freels and James Heistand). The new company will own, operate or have under development 45 million square feet in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Arizona, Colorado and California.
Yi-Chin Lee/Staff photographer
Transformational may seem like PR jargon, but consider the impact Midway had on west Houston with its 2009 conversion of the former Town and Country Mall into the outdoor mixed-use development CityCentre, and its ongoing redevelopment of an industrial site into the 150-acre mixed-use project, East River in the East End. Both are once-in-a-generation developments reshaping the surrounding neighborhoods.
Over the years Parkway Property Investments and Midway Holdings have bought several assets through joint ownership partnerships or agreements with other companies. Those properties will retain their existing ownership structures.
A new report shows Houston's tech environment is growing at a very fast pace. Also, another Houston company is leading the way to refine Alternative aviation fuels, and lastly a Downtown Houston Data center is expanding to accommodate use of higher end technologies by Downtown Houston businesses. All of which are leading to more economic diversity for the Greater Houston economy.
First off.
Report: Houston metro area ranked No. 2 for increase in tech job postings in April
A new tech jobs report ranked the Houston metro area the second-best in the nation when it came to the amount of new jobs posted.
The national trade association Computing Technology Industry Association, or CompTIA, found that employers in the Bayou City posted 5,255 new jobs in April, an increase of 529 from March. That increase is only behind Dallas, which saw 875 new tech jobs for a total of 12,479.
In terms of overall job postings in April, Houston ranked No. 13, ahead of Austin, San Diego and Denver but well behind the top five metro areas: Washington, D.C.; New York City; Dallas; Los Angeles; and Chicago. Meanwhile, CompTIA ranked Texas the No. 2 state for overall job postings last month, with 26,780.
CompTIA’s Houston-specific findings parallel other reports made by organizations such as Dice, which found in its 2022 report that Houston led metro areas including Orlando, Florida; Detroit; and Miami in year-over-year job posting growth. In its 2023 Tech Salary Report, Dice ranked Houston 18th in the nation for average tech salary, ahead of Dallas-Fort Worth but behind Austin. Houston’s average annual tech salary is $113,985, the report found.
Several factors contributing to Houston’s growing tech workforce include the presence of a developing startup ecosystem. Houston's so-called "innovation corridor," which runs from downtown to the Texas Medical Center, was noted in Dice’s report as a point in the city’s favor. Although no specific incubators were named, the report named the Texas Medical Center — with plans to open the 500-acre BioPort campus — and Rice University as draws.
Since 2019, Houston has seen the launch of the Ion, a 300,000-square-foot innovation hub on Main Street; multiple locations of The Cannon, an accelerator hub; and the Houston location of Boston-based climate incubator Greentown Labs. Areas outside of the city limits have seen growth in innovation hubs, with The Cannon opening its first location in Montgomery County and a group of incubator hubs partnering with the Fort Bend Economic Development Council to create the Fort Bend Innovation Council.
HIF Global taps Johnson Matthey, Honeywell to begin engineering for sustainable fuels plant
An international producer of alternative fuels has selected companies to work on its next U.S. plant, just after receiving construction authorization from the state of Texas for a project south of the Houston area.
Chile-based HIF Global said May 10 that London-based chemicals company Johnson Matthey and North Carolina-based Honeywell International Inc. (Nasdaq: HON) will conduct the preliminary engineering on its planned sustainable aviation fuels plant. HIF, which has its U.S. headquarters in Houston, said the plant would produce over 11,000 barrels per day of SAF
HIF’s foray into SAF continues its expansion into electrofuels or e-fuels. The technology creates fuels that are chemically identical to fossil fuels using water, carbon dioxide and clean energy from sources such as wind and solar power. The fuels can be used in existing engines and equipment as an alternative to electric vehicles, which require their own infrastructure.
Data center provider Netrality Data Centers expands Houston space downtown
More data capacity is headed downtown, as a national data provider plans an expansion of its Houston location.
Netrality Data Centers is adding 17,000 square feet of space and 2.5 megawatts of critical capacity in the form of two data halls to the building it owns at 1301 Fannin St. The halls are expected to be online at the end of this summer, Netrality said May 11.
Over 40 network operators use the Fannin Street location, according to Netrality’s website. Gerald Marshall, Netrality’s president and CEO, said the expansion was intended to support customer deployments of higher-end technology, including artificial intelligence. The expansion will feature Delta Cube cooling technology, which eliminates heat at its source.
“The expansion of 1301 Fannin serves the region’s growing demand for cutting-edge, secure, high-density, and energy-efficient data center environments, allowing it to remain Houston’s epicenter for innovation and technological advancements,” Marshall said in a statement.
Marshall told the Houston Business Journal exponential growth in demand for more capacity was driving the expansion, which will take place on the building’s ninth floor.
Demand for renewable energy has created a push for more infrastructure, and Houston is at the center
Consider the U.S. city of the future: Electric cars zip around downtowns stocked with a network of fast charging stations, passing homes filled with electric appliances all while sharing the road with a fully electric public transportation system.
Brandon Bell, Staff / Getty Images
Such electrification of transportation, homes and commercial buildings is the cornerstone of federal policies meant to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Yet fossil fuels are integral to the production of electricity, part of a process that accounts for 25 percent of greenhouse gas emission in the country, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
To help address that, the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 included a suite of incentives to encourage more wind and solar farms that feed power into the nation’s web of electricity grids.
But a chasm lies between cleaner power generation and the network of electrified buildings and vehicles that consume that energy: the nation doesn’t have enough long distance transmission lines — which are notoriously challenging and expensive to build — to deliver all that power. Failure to expand that network will hurt grid reliability as more renewable energy comes online and coal-fired power plants are mothballed.
“We’re still discussing how are we going to decarbonise the economy, but electrification is going to play a huge role in that — and to electrify, you gotta have the grid,” said Michael Skelly, CEO of Houston-based Grid United and regarded as a pioneer in the transmission industry. “Reliability has always been important, but it’s even more important because of new generation
Across the country, about $700 billion is needed to build the roughly 300,000 more miles of transmission needed by 2035 to meet climate goals, according to Muss Akram, a senior director at consulting firm Ernst & Young focusing on energy and utilities.
There are around 1,000 high voltage transmission projects in the works nationwide, according to industry data analyzed by Ernst & Young. Akram said that includes projects that have broken ground and ones that are still in the planning and permitting phase. Overall, he said those projects total more than $95 billion in costs, and if they are all built as expected, would add another 50,000 miles of transmission lines to the country’s network of grids.
He expects Grid United’s strategy of focusing on land first will help create a blueprint others can follow to overcome challenges that have hurt the industry in the past and win the support of more investors.
“Part of our case is to show that these things can get built,” he said.
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