The Lone Star College System’s $42.2 million purchase price for that chunk of the former Compaq campus it closed on last month turns out to be $100 million less than the amount it had offered to Hewlett-Packard for the property a year earlier, reports Wall Street Journal reporter Maura Webber Sadovi. A few more tidbits from her report on the second-largest office purchase in the U.S. so far this year (The auction of Boston’s 1.8 million-sq.-ft. Hancock Tower for $660 million in March was the biggest):
The $35-a-square-foot price Lone Star paid was below the $57 average paid for the few suburban Houston office properties sold in the first quarter of 2009 and a deep discount to the $145 per-square-foot suburban average in the year-earlier first quarter, according to Real Capital Analytics, a New York-based real-estate-research firm.
Expect to see administrators of the Lone Star College System (known until recently as the North Harris Montgomery Community College System) lounging around in some of the executive furniture HP threw into the deal at the last minute as well. How did they strike this bargain?
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Read more about: 77070, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Leasing, Northwest Houston, Price Reductions
The worst flooding damage from those late April storms centered around a swath of Highway 6 stretching from the Katy Freeway to 290 in northwest Houston. The heaviest rainfall was centered further west, along the planned path of the Grand Parkway Segment E. “[Jennifer] Bayles said her section of Bear Creek Village wasn’t within the 100-year flood plain when she and her husband bought their house 17 years ago. But it was added to the flood plain in new maps developed after Tropical Storm Allison in 2001, and the couple purchased flood insurance despite the steep premiums. ‘We’re well-insured; we’ll be fine,’ she said, but some neighbors don’t have the coverage they need. And their recovery efforts grew more complicated when they learned that if their homes sustained sufficient damage they would have to elevate when they rebuild. In the past few years, Bayles said, her street has flooded regularly during heavy rains, stranding residents in their homes for hours. But the April thunderstorms were the first time she’s had water in her house, she said.” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: 77084, 77095, 77433, 77449, 77477, 77493, Bear Creek Village, Flooding, Grand Parkway, Northwest Houston
The purchase by the Lone Star College System (formerly the North Harris Montgomery Community College System) of the “core” of the former HP, former Compaq Computer campus at 249 and Louetta is now a done deal, chancellor Richard Carpenter reports: “The purchase includes approximately 1.2 million square feet of buildings as well as parking garages and other support infrastructure. This facility will serve multiple purposes for our system as we continue to grow and expand; however the center piece of the campus will be a new University Center to serve north Harris County that is expected to include at least eight university partners. In addition to the University Center, the campus will also house an instructional satellite center, Corporate College conference and training facilities, LSCS office space, as well as room for new program development and expansion.” [Swamplot inbox; previously on Swamplot]
Read more about: 77070, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Northwest Houston
The Lone Star College System — formerly known as North Harris Montgomery Community College System — appears to be the mystery buyer for those 8 empty office buildings in the former Hewlett-Packard, former-Compaq campus at 249 and Louetta. Or at least a few of them: “The property would be used for educational purposes, but the size of the acquisition is still being determined, said Steve Lestarjette, associate vice chancellor of public affairs for Lone Star College. HP declined comment Thursday.” [Houston Chronicle]
Read more about: 77070, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Northwest Houston
Somebody’s interested in those 8 empty office buildings on the former Compaq Computer campus off 249 and Louetta: “A little more than a year after Hewlett-Packard Co. put its 103-acre office campus on the sales block, the computer company is working with a buyer to finalize a sales agreement. Sources involved with the deal tell GlobeSt.com that following months of negotiations, the 2-million-square-foot office campus could be under contract within the next few weeks to a local buyer.” [Globe St.]
Read more about: 77070, Buying and Selling, Commercial Real Estate, Northwest Houston
January 21, 2009 – 10:42 am
Dreyer’s Grand Ice Cream will be shutting down its plant at 4494 Campbell Rd., off Clay Rd. in Northwest Houston, by early April: “Dori Bailey, director of consumer communications for Dreyer’s, says the company chose to close the Houston facility, which produces 20 million gallons of ice cream a year, because production demand from the Houston area has been declining over the past several years. ‘Houston was also one of our smallest plants and it only had the capability to make packaged ice cream, while our other plants are able to make other brands of ice cream snacks as well,’ Bailey says. Bailey says the company hasn’t decided whether to sell or lease the 130,000-square-foot facility. About 50,000 square feet of the plant is factory space, while 80,000 square feet is warehouse space.” [Houston Business Journal]
Read more about: 77041, Commercial Real Estate, Industrial Properties, Northwest Houston, Openings and Closings, Warehouse Space
January 16, 2009 – 10:48 am
So where are all the half-built homes? That question, asked by a Swamplot reader last week, prompted a slew of comments from other readers eager to identify pockets and neighborhoods in and around Houston where construction has come to a halt because of problems connected to the nationwide housing-market collapse. (As well as a few where construction stopped for reasons of a more local nature.)
Swamplot reader subprimelandguy suggested looking at Northwest Houston:
You need to go to the suburban areas, particularly the non master planned communities between the Beltway and Highway 6 / 1960. The most aggressive one is actually inside the Beltway near West Road and Gessner - a former Royce Homes (go figure) development called Westwood Gardens. It is a bombed out poster child for the subprime fiasco.
Then late yesterday, subprimelandguy sent in photos!
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Read more about: 77064, Abandoned Subdivisions, Cancellations and Delays, Financing, Homebuilders, Northwest Houston, Royce Builders, Westwood Gardens
Dude with the can of red spray paint, Cutten Road bridge? Responses to your latest messages are posted here. [Dirty Third Streets]
Read more about: Graffiti, Northwest Houston
Comment of the Day: Welcome to Westwood Gardens
“The neighbors are starting to join together to remove the graffiti. Not many kids are on the blocks but they do range in age from babies to happy teens. You can see them outside at times with their parents, riding scooters, riding bikes or just playing around. The neighbors even have indoor small pups, not those that you see on the news that maul on people or those that are seen used to fight. They are small well cared for happy dogs. Never without being on a leash when they are outside. A few neighbors have been seen flying small model airplanes. Everyone is friendly. Try it, if you see any one of the neighbors outside just wave and you will get a smile and a wave back. Hopefully one day we see you, if so Welcome to Westwood Gardens where you are Not just a Neighbor, Your Family!” [We Are Family!, commenting on Westwood Gardens Still Life: A Photo Tour of Half-Built Houston Homes]