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Via RECON

The Alamo City’s industrial market continues to benefit from Eagle Ford Shale activity, according to NAI REOC San Antonio’s second quarter 2012 market report.

Three of the top five largest leases signed in the second quarter were by Chalk Mountain Services, an oilfield services company specializing in transportation of frac sand, an industrial sand used in deep well drilling of oil and natural gas.

Chalk Mountain signed leases at Alamo Downs Distribution Center (50,372 sf), Pan Am Distribution Center (47,183 sf) and Nickase Business Center (40,000 sf).

“It is estimated that frac sand is currently being stored in approximately 650,000 sf of San Antonio warehouse facilities, which has obviously benefitted the local market,” said Kim Gatley, senior vice president and director of research for NAI REOC San Antonio.

But Gatley said the local industrial market isn’t built wholly on shifting sand.

According to the firm’s survey of more than 31 million sf of tracked industrial space, the local market had 250,600 sf of positive net absorption in the second quarter. Year-to-date, local industrial properties had 912,958 sf of positive net absorption.

The citywide vacancy rate tightened to 10.3 percent at the close of the second quarter compared with 11.9 percent last quarter and 14 percent in the same quarter last year.

The average citywide quoted rental rate was up six cents from last quarter to $5.62 per sf per year on a triple net basis, and up nine cents compared with last year at this time for a moderate annual increase of 1.6 percent.

The city’s 24.3 million sf of warehouse space had the majority of leasing activity and absorption recorded in the second quarter, generating 225,776 sf of positive net absorption.

Citywide warehouse vacancy rate improved to 8.6 percent compared with 10.6 percent last quarter and 13.1 percent a year ago.

The citywide average quoted rental rate for warehouse space increased six cents from last quarter to $4.48 per sf, five cents higher than the average rate recorded in the same quarter last year.

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Map source.

By William Pack for the San Antonio Express News

Slow but steady growth is predicted for the U.S. economy in the coming year, and Texas will contribute significantly to the expansion, economists with IHS Global Insight said Tuesday.

Texas is forecast to have the third-highest gross domestic product growth of all the states this year, behind North Dakota and Oklahoma, and was expected to regain the jobs it lost from its pre-recession peak in the first quarter this year. Only Alaska and North Dakota could make similar job-growth claims, the economic intelligence firm said.

In addition, Texas’ largest cities were identified as being among the strongest job generators in the southern region during the 12 months that ends in June 2013.

Austin led the list of top 10 southern cities with 2.5 percent job growth, while San Antonio came in eighth with 1.8 percent growth in hiring.

Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston also outperformed San Antonio in job growth. The Dallas area finished third in the ranking with 2.1 percent growth, while Houston finished three slots ahead of San Antonio with 1.9 percent growth.

But San Antonio’s projected unemployment rate for the year was expected to be 6.7 percent, the third-lowest in the South, behind only Washington, D.C. and Austin.

San Antonio’s gross metropolitan product was expected to grow at the third-fastest pace at 2.9 percent, third-best to Austin and Dallas-Fort Worth.

IHS economist Charlie Dougherty said Texas and Oklahoma had two advantages that other states did not: a strong energy sector and more insulation from the housing downturn.

San Antonio-area economists said they were not surprised by the state’s and the city’s strong showing in the IHS study.

“Compared to the rest of the country, we are literally riding high,” said Travis Tullos, a regional economist with TXP Inc.

Tullos said the Texas economy was outperforming most other states even before the energy sector took off. With drilling activity returning and Texas companies providing services to energy producers around the globe, more economic growth is likely, Tullos said.

St. Mary’s University economist Steve Nivin said cities such as Austin and Dallas with higher concentrations of high-tech industries have been outperforming San Antonio. But San Antonio’s economic diversity should keep it growing at possibly an above-average rate next year, he said.

The IHS study looked at economic changes by region and did not focus on Texas specifically. Texas was part of a 16-state region that included the District of Columbia and that lost 3 million jobs during the recession, the most of any region, Dougherty said.

IHS said the South produced more job growth than the national average last year and was on par with the nation’s job expansion through the first quarter of this year at 2.2 percent.

But the area is not expected to reclaim all the jobs it lost to the recession until the second quarter of next year.

After seeing a steep drop in housing starts from 2005 to 2009, single-family housing permits in the region increased at the beginning of this year and housing prices are expected to grow in 2013, Dougherty said.

Read more here.

Texas is the number one state for business. In CNBC’s sixth annual study, Texas racked up an impressive 1,604 points out of a possible 2,500, with top-10 finishes in six of the 10 categories of competitiveness. Texas has never finished below second place since the study began in 2007.

In addition to the top spot overall, Texas has the nation’s best Infrastructure, according to our study. It improved to second place for Technology and Innovation, and boasts the third lowest Cost of Living. The state’s Workforce improved to seventh best from 14th last year. Access to Capital declined a bit, but Texas still finished in the top 10 (eighth). Perhaps most impressive, the Texas economy recovered from a rare stumble last year, when it finished 14th in the category, improving to fifth this year.

Impact News reports that the Woodlands is considered a front-runner for a high-speed rail stop for the Houston to Dallas line. The first image below from TXDOT shows the potential routes of a passenger rail system while the chart compares the rail with other modes of transportation. See the full article in Impact News for updates on the Texas rail system.

Forbes: In first place is Houston, where the average annual wage in 2011 was $59,838, eighth highest in the nation. What puts Houston at the top of the list is the region’s relatively low cost of living, which includes such things as consumer prices and services, utilities and transportation costs and, most importantly, housing prices: The ratio of the median home price to median annual household income in Houston is only 2.9, remarkably low for such a dynamic urban region; in San Francisco a house goes for 6.7 times the median local household income. Adjusted for cost of living, the average Houston wage of $59,838 is worth $66,933, tops in the nation.

Dallas-Fort Worth came in fifth and Austin came in eighth.

See full article here.

The Austin City Council voted 7-0 June 15 to adopt Imagine Austin, the City’s comprehensive plan for Austin’s future.

Imagine Austin was designed as a two-year process kicked off in October of 2009.
During Phase One, the City hired a consulting firm with experience guiding cities through creating strategic and comprehensive plans, in addition to subconsultants specializing in targeted community outreach. Together City of Austin staff and the consultant team toured the community and interviewed civic and business leaders, institutional partners, and subject-matter experts.

The City Council also appointed Austin citizens to serve on a Comprehensive Plan Citizens Advisory Task Force to work with the consultant team and City staff to help all members of the community articulate common values that will guide Austin into the future.

The City conducted a Community Inventory, a large data bank on Austin capturing: Demographics & household trends; Natural environment; Land use and

zoning; Economic development and employment trends; Housing and neighborhood conditions; Transportation; Public utilities; Parks and recreation; Community facilities; Historic Austin; Urban design and urban form

Phase Two was a thorough effort to reach all of Austin with information and feedback and ideas about Imagine Austin. Nearly 5,000 Austinites selected a

preferred growth scenario. Meetings with neighborhood leaders also began addressing how existing and new Neighborhood Plans will sync with the comprehensive plan.

Phase three is implementation and includes the meeting on June 15.

The plan defines where the city is today and where the community wants it to go. The plan includes implementation guidelines and the following priority programs:

1. A compact, connected Austin with improved transportation options.
2. Sustainably managed water resources.
3. Invest in Austin’s workforce, education systems and entrepreneurs.
4. Protect environmentally sensitive areas and integrate nature into the City.
5. Invest in Austin’s creative economy.
6. Develop and maintain household affordability throughout Austin.
7. Create a “Healthy Austin” program.
8. Revise Austin’s land development regulations and processes.

Planning Commission Chair Dave Sullivan, an active participant in creating the plan, said by 2039 Austin may have hundreds of thousands more residents.

“Having a periodically updated plan will help us to channel that growth to preserve what we find most important today, to spend our resources more effectively and efficiently, and to spread benefits and opportunities more fairly so that Austin becomes a model city,” Sullivan said.

Source: Imagine Austin via RECON

via the San Antonio Business Journal

The good news is that employment numbers for San Antonio’s construction industry are continuing to rise.

The bad news is that fewer cities are enjoying the same fortune as San Antonio.

In its latest survey of the country’s 337 largest metros, the Arlington, Va.-based Associated General Contractors of America (AGC) found that between March 2011 and March 2012, employment increased in 155 of those cities.

Among the cities included in that figure: The San Antonio/New Braunfels metro — which saw a 7 percent increase in construction employment on a year-over-year basis. To date, the local construction industry is reporting a total of 44,300 employees — up 2,900 from the 41,400 employees reported at the end of March 2011, per the latest AGC report.

The San Antonio/New Braunfels metro area was also among the cities that posted construction employment gains in January and February as well.

Unfortunately, the number of cities actually posting job growth is shrinking.

In January, out of the total 337 metros tracked by AGC, 169 of those cities saw construction employment figures rise. In February, the number was up slightly — with 171 metros seeing employment gains.

Now in March, only 155 of the country’s largest metro areas were reporting construction employment gains.

Another 134 metros reported employment declines; 48 cities reported no change, the AGC analysis states.

Other Texas metros among the 155 that saw construction employment numbers rise between March 2011 and March 2012 are the the Dallas/Plano/Irving metro area, which saw a 1 percent increase in construction employment; and the Fort Worth/Arlington metro area, which reported a 5 percent gain in construction employment.

Meanwhile, the Houston/Sugar Land/Baytown metro area was among the 134 that saw employment figures drop — 1 percent between March 2011 and March 2012.

The Austin/Round Rock/San Marcos region was among 48 metro areas that saw no change in construction employment, AGC states.

Market uncertainty, AGC officials say, continues to hamstring construction-employment growth in many markets. Washington’s failure to approve long-term investment in highway and transportation improvements, for example, is putting the hurt on construction firms that work on these public infrastructure projects, according to the AGC.

“When it comes to politicians talking about the need to support private-sector job creation, construction firms could benefit from less rhetoric and more action,” says Stephen E. Sandherr, chief executive officer for the AGC. “… It would be helpful if Congress and the administration would instead help end much of the uncertainty holding back the industry.”

Source

This week’s Houston Business Journal reports that Houston tops the nation in super-commuters, a new breed of business traveler that travels long distances — mainly within the Texas triangle — once a week or more for work.

The super-commuter is defined as a person who works in one metropolitan area but commutes regularly to other metropolitan areas through various forms of transportation, according to a new study from the Rudin Center for Transportation atNew York University’s Wagner School of Public Service.

The Houston area has the highest percentage of super-commuters of all major U.S. cities, with 251,200 super-commuters making up 13.2 percent of the workforce, a number that increased by 98 percent from 2002 to 2009. Several factors have contributed to this increase including population growth and double income households. Mitchell Moss, director of the Rudin Center and an author of the super-commuter study, says if one person gets a new job in a nearby city, the household may choose to keep the original family residence and let person commute to the new job.

Another contributing factor to Houston’s super-commuter growth is the proximity of other major economic centers such as Dallas and Austin. However, the proximity these cities may have hindered the development of alternative forms of transportation since the drive between cities is not excessive, and there is an abundance of affordable air service, said Joe Schweiterman, a professor of transportation studies and the director of the Chaddick Institute for Metropolitan Development at DePaul University in Chicago.

“I think that’s why rail and bus haven’t seen that much action,” he said. “It is an untapped market waiting for entry.”

Read more about super-commuters and see the bus and rail options being explored.

Did you know we do business all over the state of Texas? Our most recent transaction is from Austin.

West End Lumber Company signed a 7-year lease for a 37,700-square-foot industrial building and an adjacent one-acre tract at 3601 Silver Dollar Circle. Kevin Dalrymple of Clay & Company represented the tenant.

via

Texas dominates this year’s edition of Forbes’s Best Cities For Jobs list with the big drivers of growth coming from three basic sectors: energy, technology and manufacturing.

In first place in of the 65 largest metropolitan areas is Austin, which has logged strong growth in manufacturing, technology-related employment and business services. Houston places second, Fort Worth fourth, and Dallas-Plano-Irving sixth.

Odessa, TX, No. 1, Overall

The state has added some 200,000 generally high-paying oil and gas jobs over the past decade — but Texas is also leading in industrial job growth, technology and services.

The strong growth of the energy sector, and Texas, is even more evident in the overall ranking, which includes many small and medium-sized metropolitan areas. The top 10 fastest growers overall include as No. 1 Odessa, Texas; second-place Midland, Texas; Lafayette, La. (fourth place); Corpus Christi, Texas (sixth), San Angelo, Texas (seventh); and Casper, Wyo. (10th).

The survey, compiled with Pepperdine University’s Michael Shires, found that small and midsized metropolitan areas, with populations of 1 million or less, accounted for 27 of the 30 urban regions in the country that are adding jobs at the fastest rate.

In 2011, for the first time since before the recession, growth in private-sector employment outstripped the public sector. More than half (231) of the 398 metro areas surveyed registered declines in government jobs, with public-sector employment dropping 0.9 percent overall. Meanwhile, private-sector employment expanded 1.4 percent.

Some Texas towns, however, have not proved to be as prosperous. College towns and military towns which had previously done well in the face of the recession have suffered from budget cuts in the last year. College Station, Texas, plummeted from fourth overall in 2010 to 167th, and last year’s overall No. 1, Killeen-Ft. Hood, Texas, slid to 43rd place.

Read More:

Small Cities are Becoming New Engine of Economic Growth
The Best Cities for Jobs