- Australian Development Firm Caydon Property Group To Break Ground on Midtown Apartment Project in January [Houston Chronicle]
- Prologis Warehouse Portfolio in West by Northwest Industrial Park Hits 100% Occupancy [Realty News Report]
- Lloyd’s Register Extends 86,892-SF Lease for U.S HQ in West Houston [Houston Chronicle]
- Auto Warehousing Co. Signs Lease with Port of Houston for Bayport Terminal Site [HBJ; previously on Swamplot]
- Rice Military One of the Nation’s Priciest Neighborhoods To Rent In, Finds HomeUnion [Culturemap]
- How Much Space $1,500 in Rent Gets You in Houston Versus Other Cities
[HBJ] - Expanding Affordable Housing Big Objective for Houston’s New Housing Director [Houston Public Media]
- Sterling House Bar Officially Opens to the Public Aug. 6 in Historic Sterling House [KHOU; previously on Swamplot]
- Triniti Owner Planning To Open New Restaurant FM Burger on Washington Ave This Year [Culturemap]
- Texas Highway Spending To Reach Record Levels as State Makes Repairs, Expansions in Growing Areas Such As Houston [Houston Chronicle]
- Oak Forest Residents Launch Online Petition Over High Water Bills [KHOU]
- Podcast: Is It Possible to Forage for Food in Houston? [Houston Matters]
- How the Astrodome Was a Symbol of Houston’s ‘Can-Do’ Attitude [Houston Chronicle]
Photo of River Oaks District: Russell Hancock via Swamplot Flickr Pool
Headlines
Houston’s “can-do” spirit:
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1. Move to Houston
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2. Complain about oppressive heat
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3. Build a massive, air-conditioned dome so you don’t have to sweat so much while watching people play sports
Re: Auto Warehousing signs lease for Bayport Cruise Terminal
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That will be the purtiest auto warehouse known to man. Only cost us $108 million to make ready. Good job, Port Authority – and special honorable mention to the county’s commissioners! (end sarcasm)
That slideshow in the highway article was unbelievably bad.
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Highlights:
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Showing “New York, New York” in Vegas for NYC
Showing Lawrenceville, NJ (40 miles away) for NYC
Showing the 110 in Los Angeles for NYC
Showing another LA freeway with palm trees for NYC
Showing I-35 in downtown Austin for LA
Showing a picture of downtown Tampa for Miami
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If I didn’t know better, I’d think the intern who compiled that was deliberately trolling
Yes, because Houston is the only city with an air conditioned stadium.
Society has learned a lot in the past 50yrs and one of those is that the Adome and all sports stadiums involving public money rob taxpayers (and in turn a city’s future growth) for the sake of pleasing select demographics and politicians. I’m sure the Astrodome was awesome when it was the world’s envy. Not so awesome when we have failing infrastructure and a poorly educated labor force 30yrs down the road because of it. Talking about the astrodome and bayport terminal on the same day is just rubbing it in on the taxpayers.
How in God’s name can someone start construction on MORE apartments given the current market conditions? Or maybe they have some proprietary finance model that shows an amazing upswing in rent demand next year, but man that seems risky.
Midtown apartments: Developers show their lack of local savvy by referring to the ‘Medical Precinct’ and using terms like ‘km’. They appear to be so giddy by not having to deal with a zoning authority that all judgement has deserted them.
Re: More Midtown apartments
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That Aussie’s quote sounds like he’s a bit giddy at not having a Melbourne-style planning commission – so much so that he lost his rationality. But, as the old saying goes: There’s a sucker born every minute.
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Forget about shrimp – throw another 1,000 apartment units on the barbie. At some point, rental rates can start falling at a good clip.
Throw another apartment complex on the barbie.
@joel: I don’t think so. 50 years ago, building a sports stadium benefited the plebians as much as it did the patricians, much as it did 2,000 years ago. In the last 50 years our bread and circuses have been replaced by corporate schmooze zones. If history is any lesson, we will have to go through a violent uprising to get the cheap seats back.
The building of apartments despite obvious market downturn is an example of “The Producers” scheme. In development, if one has secured the financing, the developer will make money regardless whether the project succeeds or fails, in some cases the developer may walk away with more money if the project fails. Leave some Aussie bank holding the bag, push the LLC into bankruptcy and walk away with a sack of money with a dollar sign on it and start the next project with a fresh LLC.
The “cheap seats” have been taken back. They are in your living/den room. You have a better view than those paying hundreds of dollars for a seat down on Kirby (and hopefully are enjoying a better class of people around you).
@memebag: so true, the outfield seats at Astros games used to be quite affordable back in the day. The new stadiums have shifted towards a much higher end demographic.
I have a difficult time thinking of even one professional that’s my own age or younger that places a high value on going to sporting events for the sake of the sport rather than for some sort of unrelated self-aggrandizing purpose. Or perhaps they are out there, but they suppress the extent of their fanaticism in a business context. Maybe… Seems unlikely. For that matter, televised spectator sports don’t seem to hold the same captivation that they do with older individuals; go to ‘sports bars’ and its quite clear whose eyes are locked onto a big screen versus whose eyes are locked onto tiny little palm-sized screens cycling through an endless series of selfies, re-hashed political memes, and funny cat GIFs.
I have wonder whether the current model of professional sports is actually going to be sustainable, going forward. On the other hand, if only the ‘true’ plebians care anymore, and sports are for sports fans, then maybe they’ll finally be worth paying attention to… I could see it going either way.
If Aussy developers keep coming in and building new apartments complexes beyond the saturation point, that will help take care of part of the affordable housing problem right there. Somebody is going to lose money with all these apartments going up, but the winner here is Houston residents. Over supply most often benefits those in the demand.