Houston19514

I am aware that a lot of Dallas chamber of commerce types have been trying for many years to get the national agencies to change their rules just for Dallas, because they didn't much like having vacant buildings being included in the office vacancy reports... The national agencies apply their methods consistently to every city; if they do otherwise, their reports would be worthless. And whether you acknowledge the existence of empty office buildings or not, the fact remains, they exist, they are empty and they are available. All that being said, even if we take out all of the empty space for which there are even vague plans of conversion to lofts or whatever, none of that is going to effect the Class A vacancy rate (because Class A buildings are not sitting empty or being converted to lofts). I have seen no evidence anywhere that downtown Dallas has anything near a 5% vacancy rate for Class A space. (See the Dallas Business Journal figure quoted above)

There are indeed a lot of exciting things occurring and "hollowed out" may be overstating it. But the fact remains, that the CBD has a seriously high office vacancy rate and it appears that it is about to take another jump, when the tenants/owners start moving out of their current spaces into the new buildings being built.

Perhaps I was too subtle in my previous post. According to their website, there is a Ruby Tuesday's at 17117 Tomball Parkway. Why do you say In and Out is not a chain?

17117 Tomball Parkway

"Again," no it does not come off a general vacancy including all classes of buildings. Texas A&M Real Estate Center quotes a 19.1 percent vacancy for Class "A" space in the CBD, and again, that is "direct vacancy" (not including space available for sublease.) FYI, the Class "B" direct vacancy rate is 27%. Here is the link And this from Steve Brown in the April 4, 2006 Dallas Morning News: " Downtown – which lost about 175,000 square feet of tenants in the first quarter – is about 28 percent vacant." And while we're at it, here's a quote from the May 19, 2006 Dallas Business Journal: "various redevelopment projects and new headquarters buildings for Hunt Consolidated Inc. and 7-Eleven Inc. -- is generating positive buzz about the downtown market. But few are talking about the gaping holes relocating and consolidating tenants are leaving behind. Here's the situation: a dozen Class A buildings in the central business district will soon have vacancies totaling more than 3 million square feet. All will have openings of 130,000 square feet or more. Over the last five years, the overall vacancy rate for downtown Dallas has hovered between 27% and 31%. But the Class A buildings have performed much better, with average vacancies of about 15%." (and soon to take big jump due to the new construction)

Source? According to the Texas A & M Real Estate Center, Dallas' CBD had a vacancy rate of 19.1% at the end of 2005, and that's just direct vacancy (not including space available for sublease).

and I guess Rip is waking up in a new location. Did he roll over while he was sleeping?

Really? What's the office occupancy rate in downtown Dallas, while office buildings are popping up all over Uptown. What's the hotel occupancy rate in downtown Dallas, while hotels are popping up all over Uptown? Why would anyone be interested in geographically expanding downtown when downtown itself is full of underoccupied office buildings and hotels, and for that matter, vacant real estate.

Another vote for Steak n Shake and White Castle! (Carl's Jr and Hardee's are now the same thing, only the name is different) I've never been to a Trader Joe's, but I've heard they are great!

I don't think it's really fair or accurate to compare Uptown Dallas with Midtown Houston. The only thing they really have in common is the fact that they are just across a freeway from their respective downtowns. I don't see Midtown Houston ever being much like Uptown Dallas, with all of the very high-end projects, and big hotels and office buildings. Houston has that type of development mostly in Uptown Houston (and hopefully will have more in Downtown Houston.) I wish we were further along on it, but I like the general direction of Midtown Houston better. I don't want to go the route that Dallas is taking of developing essentially a new downtown while continuing to hollow out the old one.

Foley's might be starting to look better because Federated/Macy's knows how to run department stores MUCH better than May Co. ever did, IMO. I'm a little confused about your reference to Baybrook. Baybrook has both Foley's and Penney's stores.

Not to take anything away from Redscare's legal research skills, but it really wasn't very difficult to find columns criticizing Cuban. They were indeed all over the country.

Is it really that different from any other home-buying transaction, where realtors place "sold" signs atop their signs as soon as a contract is signed and deposit put down? MANY "sold" houses never get to closing.

Very interesting history. But IIRC, the old Foley's was actually demolished, not reconfigured and added-to.

So...?? There are other properties adjoining the site as well. As there almost always are with every development in every city. What is your point?

I think the old Foley's was gone a long time ago... isn't that approximtely where Dillard's is? The dept store next to the ice rink being torn down is probably the former Mervyn's.

<YAWN> No, I don't remember her story about some movie producer. If I wanted to read about movie producers (and I'm thinking I'm not alone in this), I'd turn to the entertainment section of the paper. A good real estate reporter writes about real estate. A good real estate reporter would have had something in the paper about the proposed Shamrock Tower BEFORE the sales trailer went on the property, not months afterward. A good real estate reporter would have had something in the paper by now about the Shamrock Tower being (presumably) dead. A good real estate reporter would have an occasional scoop on, oh, maybe the leasing activity at Houston Pavilions, or Boulevard Place, or City Centre, or the planning and development of the downtown park. A good real estate reporter would have had SOMEthing in the paper about the apparent demise of the Renaissance Hotel project in the old Texaco Building. We don't need fluff. We don't need "human interest" stories about some guy who happens to be a producer of some movie; we need information about real estate development and activity. As I said before, if they aren't going to get someone who can learn about, dig for, and report on real estate activities around the metro area, they are wasting their time and money. If they want another "fluff" reporter, they should be honest about it and just add another staffer to the entertainment section.

The purpose of a reporter is to "stir the pot"?!? That's the kind of thinking that is leading to the demise of the newspaper industry. If facts are secondary, newspapers will be less than "secondary", they will be worthless. Sorry, but for a successful news organization, the purpose of a reporter is to gather and disseminate the information. There is plenty of content in the daily paper that is there solely to entertain. I really don't think anyone goes to the real estate section for entertaining "fluff".

Sarnoff being "lax" about this (and before her, Ralphie being equally lax) was exactly my point. If they are not going to hire an actual "reporter" who gets out of the office and digs up information and does some fact-checking (and is at least familiar enough with the real estate development in this city to know some basic facts like... 2727 Kirby will NOT be the first high-rise condo in Houston and that Dallas is NOT ahead of Houston in high-rise living), then why go to the expense? Just put a secretary by the fax machine.

Exactly which part of that was "not true"? Whatever, the other thing we haven't mentioned is ... the actual reality at Hobby... While they may currently only be using 17 gates in the new Central Concourse, SW also still uses gates in the A Concourse. Additionally, even before the new Central Councourse was completed, SW asked for it to be expanded from the originally planned 20 gates to 24 gates. So whatever number of flights they can handle per day per gate, they will start with 50% more capacity at HOU than they will EVER have at DAL. I know SW does not own any of their terminals, but it is a rare airport that will not make arrangements to add gates for Southwest (or any other airline with the capacity to pay rent). And while there may in fact be physical limitations at some airports, there are usually ways around that (witness SW's recent investment in ATA to get access to more gates at Midway). Being subject to some limitations at some airports due to physical constraints is quite different than agreeing to permanently limit yourself to a relatively small number of gates. Your estimate of 14 flights per day per gate seems wildly optimistic compared to SW's actual operations. Of their major "hub" airports, They only have one operating more than 10 flights per day per gate (Las Vegas @ 10.4 flights per day per gate). The others all operate more in the range of 7-8 flights per gate per day. (I read on-line that SW was operating 10 flights per day per gate at HOU, PRE-EXPANSION.) If they realistically thought they could operate at that level (and in deed 40% above that level) for the long term I highly doubt they would have agreed to the large expansion project (and while they do not own the terminal, rest assured, they largely pay for it). Thus, it seems more realistic to estimate that SW anticipates nothing more than 160 flights per day from DAL (16 gates at 10 flights per day per gate).

Our good friend, 713 to 214, might have some thoughts on that possibility.

Agreed. More "casual bars", as you put it, would be great.

Post Oak Lane is well to the east of both of those properties. Should not be a problem at all. (I'm guessing Mr. Wulfe has already looked at his maps and figured this out.)

Oh, I see we're using an evolving definition of the phrase "opened and closed". (Remember, you started this off by declaring flatly that "EVERy "new" place has open and closed except Mia Bella.") Heck, if we're including management changes, why not go ahead and include shift changes too. ;-)

I believe there was something in the paper about it when they broke ground a while back. I don't recally exactly where it is, but IIRC, I think it is somwhere to the northwest...