Texas Economy Thread

[ardamir]

I know some people who have land in Karnes County (it is a major craphole btw). They received huge signing bonuses two years ago and their land still has yet to be drilled on.

[Bond James Bond]

Originally Posted by desertpunk

This is all just in time for the return of "Dallas"!

Except that this time it should be called "San Antonio."

[diablo234]

United Airlines is looking to eliminate 1,300 jobs at their Houston hub, partially as a response to the approval of the Hobby Airport expansion which will allow international flights to use Hobby instead (although I am guessing those job eliminations were already planned because of the overcapacity resulting from the merger of United/Continental).

Houston Chronicle: United to cut Houston jobs

[desertpunk]

To think that at one time, Continental Airlines was based in El Paso. In fact my first jet ride was a Continental Flight out of ELP. It was a very classy airline before 1978 and deregulation.

[desertpunk]

Dynegy files for bankruptcy protection

NEW YORK — Dynegy Inc. said Friday that it has filed for bankruptcy protection as part of a plan to reorganize after years of wrestling with falling electricity prices.

The Houston power company, which operates and sells electricity on the open market, said the Chapter 11 filing won't affect its primary assets. Dynegy's coal and natural gas-fired power plants are owned by separate subsidiaries that aren't part of the bankruptcy filing.

"They will continue to operate their businesses in the ordinary course," the company said.

Friday's filing is part of an ongoing plan to manage its debts that surpassed $5 billion last year. One of its subsidiaries, Dynegy Holdings, filed for bankruptcy protection in November.

Its reorganization plan, which calls for paying creditors between 59 cents and 89 cents on the dollar in cash and equity, was cleared on Thursday by a federal bankruptcy court in Poughkeepsie, N.Y.

Dynegy Inc., the parent, now plans to merge with Dynegy Holdings to remove a layer of the corporate structure and keep its assets under one holding company. The company said that it's necessary for Dynegy Inc. to file for bankruptcy protection to make the merger happen.

The company continues to struggle with declining power prices. It reported a first-quarter loss of $58 million, even after cutting out losses from Dynegy Holdings.

Well, long after Dynegy saw its value plummet in the wake of the Enron scandal, the other shoe finally dropped...

[desertpunk]

Fast Growing Dallas-Ft Worth Suburbs Prepare For Big Building Boom


The town of Prosper, along the U.S. 380 corridor in Collin County, saw a record number of
residential permits in May. And officials expect commercial development will soon follow.

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the U.S. Census Bureau’s 2011 population estimates wasn’t that North Texas was home to five of America’s fastest-growing cities but that growth had actually slowed a bit.

That’s old news now.

In city after city, building and development officials report record numbers of building permit applications and regular visits from ambitious developers with big plans.

The lull — if growing by 3.8 percent in 15 months can be considered a lull — is over, officials say. The housing boom is back.

“We’re forecasting 1,300 to 1,500 permits for [2012], and I wouldn’t be surprised if it goes a little higher than that,” said John Lettelleir, director of Frisco’s Department of Developmental Services. “Some people might be sitting on the sidelines, but a lot are getting into the market now that mortgage rates are as low as they’ve been in years.”

McKinney saw the number of building permits increase almost 25 percent last year, city spokeswoman Anna Clark said, and things are even busier now.

“Over the last two months, the number of permit applications we’ve received are at a five-year high, and they’re also 50 percent higher than the same months last year,” she said.

Farther east, in Rockwall County, the town of Fate straddles Interstate 30, with both sides growing fast. After a frantic decade during which Fate’s population grew from 497 in 2000 to 6,357 in 2010 — an astounding 1,179 percent — city officials estimate the current population at about 8,600.

[desertpunk]

Texas Nears Its Debt Limit For Transportation Projects

07/10/2012
Fort Worth Star-Telegram (Fort Worth, Texas)
By Gordon Dickson, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Texas

July 10--With billions of dollars worth of road work under way in Texas, it may be hard for drivers to believe that the state is running out of highway money.

But in just a few years, Texas will likely max out its debt limit for transportation projects, and by the end of 2014, it may have barely enough funding to maintain existing roads, officials said Monday. "People don't believe there's a crisis, because there are plenty of orange barrels," state Rep. Joe Pickett, D-El Paso, said during a live broadcast of a House subcommittee hearing on transportation funding. "So how long before the crisis? How long before that borrowed money dissipates and we don't have any more money to build?"

Elected leaders have authorized the Texas Department of Transportation to issue $17.3 billion in bonds for transportation projects. About $31.1 billion will be needed to repay that money over 25 to 30 years, said James Bass, the agency's chief financial officer. The agency's budget of $10.5 billion for the current fiscal year and $9.3 billion for next year are record highs. But Pickett said those figures don't paint an accurate picture of the state's future road funding. Instead, nearly $6.7 billion of that two-year total is proceeds from bonds and other one-time sources that won't be around later, he said.

The state's main source of highway funding, the 20-cent-per-gallon motor fuel tax, is generating only about $2.6 billion a year -- far less than adequate for a state that, by one estimate, needs $14 billion a year to keep up with growth in population and jobs. Bass said the state will likely enter into an "era of uncertainty" about highway funding in 2015. Lawmakers are looking at several options for increasing mobility and road maintenance funding during the next session of the Legislature, which starts in January.

[zaphod]

That needs to be posted in some of the Highways section threads where some forumers are having a combination hard-on and ideological debate fest over giant Texas Freeways.

Figures we'll run out of money eventually. Sometimes I worry that this state will have California type problems 25 years from now, only there won't be any liberals to blame them on.

[diablo234]

Originally Posted by zaphod

That needs to be posted in some of the Highways section threads where some forumers are having a combination hard-on and ideological debate fest over giant Texas Freeways.

Figures we'll run out of money eventually. Sometimes I worry that this state will have California type problems 25 years from now, only there won't be any liberals to blame them on.

The problem with highway funding is that in Texas the gas tax has not been raised since 1991 or even tied to inflation which means that there is less and less revenue for maintaining and building new roads, and what funds do remain often get diverted for non-transportation uses. The rest of the nation is also experiencing this same phenomenon which is why you are seeing more and more toll roads pop up.

[desertpunk]

...

[desertpunk]

Lufthansa brings largest passenger aircraft to Houston Wednesday

Lufthansa on Wednesday launches daily Airbus A380 service between Houston’s George Bush Intercontinental Airport and Frankfurt, Germany.

This is the first Airbus A380 service in the state of Texas. The addition of daily Houston-Frankfurt service with the largest passenger aircraft will increase capacity on this route by 53 percent, Lufthansa said in a Wednesday statement.

The double-decker Airbus A380 has 526 seats, burns about 12 percent less fuel than other wide-body jets and is approximately 30 percent quieter than the current generation of wide-body aircraft.

To prepare for the Airbus A380, the Houston Airport System upgraded IAH with improvements such as a new elevated walkway and passenger loading bridge, including foundations and structure support, electrical updates and the addition of two jet fuel double hydrants in the apron.

Houston Mayor Annise Parker has declared Wednesday Lufthansa Airlines Day in Houston. The first Airbus A380 flight is scheduled to arrive in Houston at 1:50 p.m., when Parker, Houston Airport System Director Mario Diaz and Juergen Siebenrock, Lufthansa’s vice president of the Americas, will greet the incoming passengers. The aircraft’s first departure is set for 6:20 p.m. Wednesday, though future departures are scheduled for 4:20 p.m. daily.

[desertpunk]

[desertpunk]

Texas Tops Rest Of Nation In Job Growth

COLLEGE STATION (Real Estate Center) – The Texas economy gained 228,500 nonagricultural jobs from May 2011 to May 2012, an annual growth rate of 2.2 percent compared with 1.4 percent for the United States, according to the Real Estate Center’s latest Monthly Review of the Texas Economy.
The state’s private (nongovernment) sector gained 279,800 jobs, an annual growth rate of 3.2 percent compared with 1.8 percent for the nation’s private sector.
Texas’ seasonally adjusted unemployment rate fell to 6.9 percent in May 2012 from 8.1 percent in May 2011. The nation’s rate decreased from 9 to 8.2 percent. The state’s actual unemployment rate in May 2012 was 6.5 percent. Midland had the lowest unemployment rate followed by Odessa, Amarillo, Lubbock, San Angelo and Abilene.

[desertpunk]

Texas Leads Nation In New Home Construction

WASHINGTON, D.C. (The Atlantic, NAHB) – Talk about raising the roof.
According to the latest Census data, Texas gets credit for 20 percent of the increase in new homes built in the United States between April 1, 2010, and July 1, 2011.

Nationally, the number of new homes built during that period increased by 607,000. Texas accounted for 121,000 of those. That's three times as many as California, which came in second in the number of new homes built.
And that's not all.
The Atlantic reported that one-fifth of the 100 counties with the highest rate of growth in new housing are in Texas. Among those are Fort Bend, Rockwall, Hays, Wilson, Guadalupe, Williamson, Blanco and Parker, all of which landed in the top 25 in terms of growth rate.

[diablo234]

http://blog.chron.com/sciguy/2012/08...mercial-space/

NASA has finally announced the third round of funding for private efforts to launch humans into orbit. The commercial space winners are:
- Sierra Nevada Corporation, Louisville, Colo., $212.5 million
- Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), Hawthorne, Calif., $440 million
- The Boeing Company, Houston, $460 million

Boeing is building its own capsule, the CST-100, which would be compatible with several launch vehicles. For Houston this continues to be good news on the commercial space front because Boeing is leading the design of its spacecraft from the Clear Lake area, and SpaceX is considering developing a launch site in South Texas.

[desertpunk]

Top 150 publicly traded companies in Dallas 2012: http://newsapps.dallasnews.com/media...companies.html




(hint: Exxon's on top!)

[jonathaninATX]

Space tourism company purchases land in South Texas

09/23/2012 9:19 PM

Associated Press

SpaceX is buying land in South Texas where the space tourism company is considering building a rocket launch facility, ramping up speculation that the company has chosen Texas over Florida and Puerto Rico for the project's home.

The Brownsville Herald found that SpaceX purchased at least three lots in Cameron County under the name Dogleg Park LLC. Property records show the owner's address is listed as SpaceX headquarters in Hawthorne, Calif. The company did not respond to the newspaper's requests to comment on the land purchases.

Brownsville officials emphasized that the purchases do not mean that SpaceX has made a decision.

"But it is a good sign," said Cameron County Judge Carlos Cascos, the county's top elected official.

In June, SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk said the site near Brownsville was the leading candidate to become home to the company's latest spaceport. He has met with Gov. Rick Perry to discuss economic incentives to put a launch site in Texas. It would also have a control center that could support up to 12 commercial launches a year.

The location would be about three miles north of the U.S.-Mexico border and about five miles south of South Padre Island.

According to property records found by the Herald, SpaceX purchased a half-acre lot in June for $2,500. The other two purchases were made at auctions earlier this month, where records show that SpaceX's director of business affairs bought one lot for $6,400 and another for $15,000.

http://m.statesman.com/statesman/pm_...tguid=cOj2idyC

[desertpunk]

Austin area office occupancies, rents on the rise

Continuing on its two-year upswing, the Austin area office market posted gains in rents and occupancies in the third quarter, new figures show.

The occupancy rate for top-flight office space was 85.8 percent by the end of the quarter, up from 81.7 percent in the year-ago period, Oxford Commercial reported Tuesday. Rents for that first-class space averaged $29.90 per square foot, up $1.67 from the $28.23 per-square-foot on average at the end of September 2011.

Oxford said the direct vacancy rate, which doesn’t include sublease space, has been trending down for seven straight quarters, and has dropped 3.87 percentage points since mid 2011.

The office market has been on a robust run, fueled by the area’s job growth, particularly in white-collar jobs. The Austin metro added more than 4,000 jobs in August, a 3.2 percent growth rate over August 2011. Companies expanding their local operations include Emerson Process Management, Yodle Inc. and Apple Inc., which plans to build an 800,000-square-foot campus in Austin after approval of incentives from the state, the City of Austin and Travis County.

“We continue to see fantastic demand in the office market,” said Derek Land, regional managing partner for Stream Realty Partners LP. “(Downtown) and southwest have been strong and continue to thrive. Northwest and far northwest are now gaining steam. New tenants continue to move to Austin, both technology-based and other sectors, and we continue to see expansion of existing tenants as hiring continues.”

[desertpunk]

El Paso company plans purchase of struggling Colorado bank

Strategic Growth Bank, a 3-year-old El Paso banking company started by well-known El Paso businessman Bill Sanders, plans to buy a struggling Colorado bank with 13 branches. Mile High Banks today announced it has agreed to sell the bank's stock to Strategic Growth for $5.5 million and Strategic Growth will put up to $90 million into the bank.

Mile High is based in Longmont, Colo., a small city about 40 miles north of Denver, where the bank has several branches.

The proposed acquisition won't be completed until Mile High's owner, Big Sandy Holding Co., files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy reorganization, and the bankruptcy court approves the sale, Mile High reported. No date has been given yet for when the bankruptcy filing will be made.

The bankruptcy filing will trigger a process in which qualified, competing bids for the bank would be accepted through the Colorado bankruptcy court. "Any qualified bidder would also be required to recapitalize the bank to an appropriate level," as Strategic Growth has agreed to do, Mile High reported. A bidder also would have to demonstrate the ability to promptly receive required regulatory approvals, the bank reported.

"This transaction is the most effective way to recapitalize and position the bank to meet its regulatory requirements and have the capital it will need in order to grow and resume making loans to its community," Dan Allen, Mile High chief executive officer, said in a written statement.

Strategic Growth, formed in 2009, bought Bank of the Rio Grande, a three-branch bank in Las Cruces, in January. It also owns Capital Bank, a two-branch El Paso savings and loan, which it acquired in 2010.
Strategic Growth executives in April told the El Paso Times that they are developing a regional banking company focused on the Southwest. Strategic Growth also has plans to build a home-mortgage loans business.

Strategic Growth will apply to the Federal Reserve Bank board for permission to acquire Mile High Bank, and has no other comments on the proposed deal, said Jeanne Lipson, a spokeswoman for the El Paso banking company.

Mile High had assets of $843.9 million, including $673.5 million in loans, at the end of June, show a report filed with federal regulators. It had deposits of $819.9 million. Its loans and deposits have declined substantially from a year ago. Mile High posted losses the last three years, including a $32.7 million loss last year, federal reports show.

Strategic Growth is a very ambitious group of bankers, businessmen and investors. Their aim is to create one of the largest commercial lenders in the Southwest to bypass the major national banks that are not lending into fast-growing communities like El Paso and Las Cruces.

[desertpunk]

Whole Foods Pulls Strong Quarter

Whole Foods Market Inc. posted another strong earnings report Wednesday, but company officials said current quarter sales have been affected by Hurricane Sandy.

For its fiscal fourth quarter, the Austin-based natural foods grocer reported a profit of $112.7 million, up 49 percent from the same quarter last year. Its net income of 60 cents per share was in line with estimates by analysts.

Revenue from stores open at least a year, a key measure of growth, was up 8.5 percent, Whole Foods said. Total sales for the quarter rose 24 percent to $2.9 billion.

Company founder and co-CEO John Mackey said the results capped off the best year in the company’s 32-year history.