WORLD’S LARGEST AIR CONDITIONING MANUFACTURER TO BUILD GIANT COMFORTPLEX AT NORTHERN REACHES OF KATY PRAIRIE 
Ah, Houston industry! Oil may be down, but air conditioning is booming — and ready to do its part to further our fine city’s sprawl-ward spread. Ralph Bivins reports this morning that Japanese HVAC giant Daikin Industries, which paid $3.7 billion back in 2012 to buy Houston’s Goodman Global, will build a $417 million, 4,000,000-sq.-ft. manufacturing and logistics campus on virgin prairie southeast of Hockley, off U.S. 290 a good 3 miles west of the Grand Parkway. Dubbed the “Comfortplex,” the facility (portrayed in the rendering above) will consolidate current company operations in both Tennessee and Texas, and increase the company’s Houston-area workforce to approximately 4,000 employees. The Comfortplex will replace an existing 525,000-sq.-ft. Goodman air-conditioner factory near Loop 610 and 290 when it opens in 2016, Bivins notes. The company produces ducted and ductless AC systems under the Daikin, Goodman, and Amana brand names. [Realty News Report] Rendering: Daikin Industries
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So what is the net increase in jobs for Houston? And how much tax money is the Texas Enterprise Fund giving them?
This sounds like a winner.
4,000,000 SF? $400+M? daaaaamn
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Side note: I didn’t know Goodman was bought by a Japanese company. :(
As a Timbergrove resident, this may be the best news I have heard yet this year! Assuming an empty factory doesn’t just sit there for years.
Nice addition to the Cypress area.
Also a Timbergrove resident. Diversity of land use in the western part of the neighborhood is part of its character. Continued conversion of manufacturing facilities to housing would be a loss. And ripping up the Katy Prarie to build sprawling manufacturing/warehouse facilities – another, more destructive loss.
‘Comfortplex’ is the scariest name imaginable, but it’s excellent news for the town and those who get employed there.
I wonder if Mayor Parker and her sidekick “development officer” Icken enjoy seeing the City’s tax base continue to flee to the suburbs? I suppose they are just too blinded by inner loop townhome construction to worry about what is going on under their noses.
Yup. The best way to shore-up the tax base is to giveaway tax abatements. That way, we get all of the incremental road maintenance expense, with none of the revenues. Perhaps we need to say that slowly. In front of a six year old.
Alternatively, the best way of shoring up the inner city is to quit having City of Houston taxpayers subsidize development in the unincorporated parts of the county. Once incorporated and unincorporated areas compete on a fair footing, proximity wins for people-intensive applications. If you need 100+ contiguous acres for a manufacturing site, then you are basically heading out of the city anyway.
They stole “comfortplex”. That’s the name of my TV room.
Hopefully a change of location will improve their quality. Although ALL air conditioning systems have becoming increasing complex and poorly made (due to ever changes government SEER rating changes and the rising cost of key ingredients like copper), Goodman is known in the industry as manufacturing one of the worst air conditioning systems on the market. They have to give longer warranties than other manufacturers due to their poor quality and bad reputation. (The “extended” warranty turns out to be a joke since you have to (a) pay a steep fee to exchange the parts and (b) pay the repairman to change out the parts and handle the warranty paperwork… which is not disclosed until your compressor fails. You’re still talking about a $700 repair for a system that is “under warranty”.)
The Japanese are certainly known for making better products than we do…. Hopefully some of that quality engineering and manufacturing discipline will trickle down to Goodman.
Your lying you may have bought Goodman but you will never be bigger than carrier . We stopped buying Goodman four years ago everyone I know is running away from Goodman the only thing you are going to do is go bankrupt and you will be able to call that the biggest thing you ever did stop lying.
Couple of clarifications: the site is 490 acres on the north side of 290 between Kickapoo and Kermier roads. This is within the Waller TX zipcode and northwest of the town of Hockley. It is in Harris County and the extraterritorial jurisdiction of the City of Houston. The company did not receive any tax abatements or Texas Enterprise money.
Where does one apply for a job?
What are job Position available here…??
how many vacancies are available…
How to apply for this Post..
I really like looking through a post that will make
people think. Also, thank you for allowing me to comment!