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Economic Development Digest
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| Economic Development News
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Comcast, MB Link to Present at Gulf Coast Economic Development District Meeting | October 4
Broadband is essential infrastructure. Retaining and attracting businesses, jobs, and population are but a few economic and community benefits. Becoming broadband-ready has multiple drivers, everything from density to terrain must be considered.
At the next Gulf Coast Economic Development District meeting, Stephanie Loving and Dionne Burnham, senior leaders of the Comcast Houston Development team, will share industry insights for local economic development through broadband. We will also have a presentation by Brain Ligon and Dwight Thomas of MB Link. They will share their insights on developing the first municipal gigabit network in Texas.
The Gulf Coast Economic Development District meeting will be at 10 a.m. Friday, October 4, at the H-GAC Conference Room B, Second Floor (3555 Timmons Lane, Houston).
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AmeriCorps VISTA Volunteer Needed
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LIVE, Work, and Play: Facilitating Housing for Livable Centers | September 20
 H-GAC's Livable Centers Program seeks to create places where people can Live, Work, and Play. The next Livable Centers workshop, LIVE, Work, and Play: Facilitating Housing for Livable Centers, will focus on the "Live" component --- providing a range of housing choices where residents can make many of their daily trips on foot, by bicycle or transit. The workshop will be from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Friday, September 20, at H-GAC Conference Room B, Second Floor.
Participants can gain insight on how to incorporate housing into planning strategies and learn about the tools available in the region to help promote successful housing development. Attendees will have a chance to join in a conversation with an expert panel to see what it takes to make a housing development "pencil," and we'll answer questions about localized housing strategies.
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Rural and Small Town Downtown Revitalization Summit | October 22
 At this half-day event, participants will learn about best practices supporting downtown revitalization, including protecting community character, staying competitive, implementation tools and resources, and tying it all together.
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Disaster Recovery Program | IEDC
The International Economic Development Council (IEDC) is placing experienced economic development professionals as volunteers in economic development organizations throughout
the region that can use expert input doing various
tasks such as:
- Attracting inward investment
- Business outreach, retention and recovery
- Community outreach, finance, flood control and mitigation
- Grant writing, strategic planning, and training/education
Thanks to U.S. Economic Development Administration funding, the volunteers-- who typically come for five days and then do supplementary work remotely--are completely free of charge to communities in the region.
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TEEX Recovery Courses Accepting Course Requests/Reservations
Texas A&M Engineering Extension Service (TEEX) is accepting course requests and reservations. The 12-hour Disaster Recovery Public Assistance course and the four-hour Disaster Recovery for Senior Officials course can be scheduled now. TEEX will come to your community; there is no-cost for this training. For more information, contact Andrew Wenzel, Program Director, at [email protected].
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2019 Workforce Report Card
The Gulf Coast Workforce Board and its operating affiliate Workforce Solutions are the public workforce system in the 13-county Houston-Galveston region. In everything that they do, they seek to assure the Gulf Coast region remains a great place to do business, work, and live.
In February 2005, the Board produced the first Workforce Report Card as a tool to gauge the region's competitiveness in relation to similar metropolitan areas across the United States. In this seventh edition, they examine key indicator data and then offer several issues for consideration in context of the future of work.
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Jobs Plus Initiative | October 1, 2019
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development Jobs Plus Initiative develops locally-based, job-driven approaches that increase earnings and advance employment outcomes through work readiness, employer linkages, job placement, educational advancement, technology skills, and financial literacy for residents of public housing. The place-based Jobs Plus program addresses poverty among public housing residents by incentivizing and enabling employment through earned income disregards for working residents and a set of services designed to support work including employer linkages, job placement and counseling, educational advancement, and financial counseling.
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Senior-housing community Arella on Jones broke ground last month. The 229-unit at 12840 Jones Road is scheduled to open in 2022.
A new Fort Bend elementary school is going to be built along Lake Olympia Parkway in the Fort Bend Toll Road corridor. The $45 million, 127,544-square-foot project is expected to open in time for the 2021-2022 school year.
The first phase of The Grand at Aliana will be breaking ground soon. The 200,000-square-foot commercial development will be located at the northeast corner of West Airport Boulevard and the Grand Parkway. It is expected to deliver in 2020.
A new apartment complex will be built on the former site of the First Baptist Church of Texas City at 3210 Gulf Freeway. The 234-unit multifamily project is expected to be complete in 2020.
Construction has started on Bayport South, a 642,994-square-foot industrial warehouse on 41.56 acres at 10575 Red Bluff Road. It is expected to be completed in 2020.
Bissonnet Medical Plaza has broken ground at 4460 Bissonnet St. The three-story, 52,000-square-foot medical office project will be completed in 2020.
Layne Crossing is moving to its next phase, which includes two more of the six warehouses planned. The 530,000-foot industrial development is in Greenspoint near I-45 and Beltway 8.
Compiled from reports in Houston Business Journal, Houston Chronicle, and Texas A&M University Real Estate Center
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