Following in the footsteps of Oracle and others, another tech company is heading from the West Coast to Austin. CrowdStreet, which operates an online marketplace for investing in commercial real estate, announced March 19 that it’s shifting its headquarters from Portland, Oregon, to Austin. CrowdStreet is considering office space in downtown Austin and around North Austin’s Domain complex. CrowdStreet is targeting a June 1 opening date for the new office. CrowdStreet executives decided to relocate the headquarters from Portland to Austin largely because Texas ranks second among states sending the most investors to the platform and because a majority of the properties sold through CrowdStreet are in Texas. Co-founder and CEO Tore Steen says the company settled on Austin because of its status as a tech hub. Another factor in Austin’s favor: A CrowdStreet report put Austin at No. 2 among the best places for real estate investment in 2021. Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, ranked first. “This move best positions CrowdStreet for growth, puts us front and center with marketplace investors and real estate sponsors, and provides our personnel with more flexibility about where and how they work,” Steen says in a release. Click to read more at www.austin.culturemap.com.

It was codenamed “Project Charm.” But this initiative was less cloak and dagger and more big market swagger—this was the move to bring e-commerce giant Amazon to Pflugerville, Texas, located in the fastest-growing market of the past decade, Austin. Bringing Amazon to Pflugerville was no small task—one spearheaded in part by Amy Madison, CEcD, EDFP, executive director of Pflugerville Community Development Corporation (PCDC). As she sees it, this project is a huge win for the area, bringing significant capital investment, new technology and needed employment to the local workforce. Securing a location for the Seattle-based e-tailer was a mammoth endeavor, one that began with early talks more than a year before the final announcement last summer. Madison said the “Project Charm” codename was apt as the company looked at three sites before it settled on a site owned by the Timmerman family near Pecan Street and SH 130. “It turns out, the third time really was the charm,” Madison said.
The fulfillment center should be operational before the 2021 holiday season, bringing with it 1,000 new full-time jobs. Employees will work alongside Amazon robotics to pick, pack and ship small items to customers such as books, electronics and toys. Click to read more at www.rednews.com.

Samsung is seeking more than $1 billion in tax credits to potentially build a new 7 million-square-foot chip fabrication plant in Austin, Texas. The proposed facility, which is estimated to be valued at more than $17 billion, would produce advanced logic devices for Samsung’s Foundry business, according to a filing with the state comptroller. The filing shows that Samsung is seeking tax abatements from Travis County and the city of Austin and tax incentive deals with Manor Independent School District and the Texas Enterprise Fund. Samsung plans to request a 100% tax abatement over 20 years from Travis County worth over $718.2 million and a 50% tax abatement over five years from the city of Austin worth over $87.1 million. The company projects the net benefits for Travis County and Austin would be $4 million and $1.18 billion, respectively, over the next 20 years. Click to read more at www.foxbusiness.com.