Category: Editorial

CCIM LUNCHEON: Bob Ethington-Director of Research and Economic Development, Uptown Houston Association

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BY RAY HANKAMER
rhankamer@gmail.com

Takeaway: Uptown Houston, otherwise loosely known as “The Galleria Area”, is equal to Houston’s Central Business District (CBD) in total developed square footage, including retail, office, hotel, and residential [!]. It is equal to the downtowns of Denver, Portland, Cleveland, or Baltimore. Mobility to and within the Uptown area has not yet caught up with the rapid growth. The project currently underway is set to correct these deficiencies. Uptown Houston’s designated area has been expanded to include Memorial Park, which is almost twice the size of Central Park in New York City. Exciting new enhancements are well underway in our park.

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Deal or No Deal? – Letters of Intent: Lessons from the Enterprise Case

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BY REID WILSON

A $469,375,000 Million Dollar trial court verdict based on a “letter of intent,” later reverse  on appeal resonates in the real estate industry, where letters of intent are commonplace.

How it started: Enterprise Products, a Houston based pipeline developer/operator approached Energy Transfer, a Dallas based competitor, to investigate a shared development transaction to transport oil from the important industry storage center in Cushing, Oklahoma to Houston, thereby eliminating a major logistics bottleneck. They signed the following documents for the proposed “Double E Pipeline”:

  • Initially, a Confidentiality Agreement to permit sharing of information, with the intention to work toward a letter of intent for the proposed transaction.

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Apartment Forecast: Presentation by Ed Nwokedi

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BY MICHAEL PAVIA

Ed Nwokedi, Senior Director of the Cushman & Wakefield’s Multifamily Advisory group, was the speaker at a luncheon on July 19 at the H.E.S.S. Club in Houston. The luncheon was sponsored by O’Conner & Associates. The topic of Ed’s presentation was Houston’s Apartment Forecast. Ed covered 1. Houston Market Fundamentals, 2. Value Add applied to existing properties, and 3. Current Value Add Targets with Examples.

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Land trends with Land Advisors: A look at Texas’ three largest markets

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BY BRANDI SMITH

The world of commercial real estate is a broad one, covering a variety of different jobs and specialties. In so many instances, we see CRE professionals take on two or more titles, chasing expertise in many different areas.

Landry Burdine, a designated broker with Land Advisors’ North Texas office, says he made the decision early on to focus his skills in one field: land brokerage.

“One of the best pieces of advice I’ve ever received came from Dallas retail developer, Mike Hopkins. He told me, ‘Be the best at something,’” Burdine explains. “I think one of the mistakes young brokers make is that they try to do a little bit of everything. They’ll try to lease office buildings and retail centers and sell pad sites. What you find is that when you do that, you don’t really learn the nuances of your market as well as you do when you focus on one thing and do it well.”

When Burdine got started as a land broker about 20 years ago, he says he made that decision because he saw opportunity. Land, he admits, can be a challenge.

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Getting “loopy” in Texas: How likely is a hyperloop in the Lone Star State?

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BY BRANDI SMITH

Imagine being able to make the trip between Houston and Dallas in 30 minutes. We’re not talking about a super-speed flight or even a high-speed train. It would take a hyperloop, a pod traveling at supersonic speeds through a series of pneumatic tubes, to make it happen.

Before you write the idea off as science fiction, Elon Musk – the man behind Tesla and Space X – is promising to make it a reality. The billionaire entrepreneur who’s already changed how we approach auto and rocket travel now seems to have his sights set on this new mode of transportation.

In late July, Musk wrote a series of tweets, starting with, “Just received verbal gov’t. approval for The Boring Company to build an underground NY-Phil-Balt-DC Hyperloop. NY-DC in 29 mins.” He went on to explain that this was a very preliminary step, but encouraged supporters to reach out to their local leaders.

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Doing it right. Right now. – The Caldwell Companies way of doing business

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BY BRANDI SMITH

If you ask the professionals who work for Houston-based Caldwell Companies what initially drew them to the firm, one word universally comes up: culture.

“It’s the people,” says Jim Black, Caldwell’s Senior Vice President of Commercial Property Services. “It’s really the associates I work with every day. It’s great people and a family-like environment.”

“The culture and the people were just a perfect fit,” echoes Senior Vice President of Brokerage Services, Keith Edwards. “I’ve been with Caldwell going on 18 years and love it. I love every day of it.”

The two industry vets, whose combined brokerage experience totals nearly 70 years, say Caldwell’s culture stresses integrity above all.

“This is a faith-based company. We are proud of that and approach everything with a high degree of integrity and honesty,” Black says. “We always try to do the right thing all the time.

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