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  #41  
Old Posted Jan 17, 2020, 5:58 PM
We vs us We vs us is offline
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I'm a big fan of rumors. We have a lot of smart, connected, observant people in this forum, and a lot of us know only the smaller pieces of the elephant. It's only natural some of us want to put some of those pieces together.

Because of this forum, I already know more than anyone else in my professional circle about DT Austin and what's coming in the pipeline. It's invaluable stuff for my job.
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  #42  
Old Posted Jan 17, 2020, 6:05 PM
Austin1971 Austin1971 is offline
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Originally Posted by urbancore View Post
i get it....i hear bs rumors all the time that i don't post. I posted this mainly to see if anyone else heard something too.....maybe they could divulge more than i could, or maybe they could debunk it.

Rumors can be very interesting and i think post worthy in general....(of course not all of them....that's why i said "big") a lot happens behind the scenes before a big announcement is made, many people know more than we do....months or years before we do.
s

Last edited by Austin1971; Jan 23, 2020 at 3:59 AM.
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  #43  
Old Posted Jan 17, 2020, 6:23 PM
deerhoof deerhoof is offline
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I definitely enjoy this topic and the rumors, I just rather hear about specific rumors instead of the "I know something but won't share all of what I know" kind of rumor. I understand there are reasons behind not sharing more such as not wanting to give out secrets that you promised to keep so it doesn't come back to bite you. That doesn't make it any less annoying though when we all want to know the details and there is obviously info out there and we can't have it lol.
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  #44  
Old Posted Jan 17, 2020, 7:05 PM
urbancore urbancore is offline
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Originally Posted by deerhoof View Post
I definitely enjoy this topic and the rumors, I just rather hear about specific rumors instead of the "I know something but won't share all of what I know" kind of rumor. I understand there are reasons behind not sharing more such as not wanting to give out secrets that you promised to keep so it doesn't come back to bite you. That doesn't make it any less annoying though when we all want to know the details and there is obviously info out there and we can't have it lol.
Trust me....nobody is more annoyed than me. I mainly want it to be true before I say anything...I want another confirmation. I try to post only things I know....I don't know this to be true...so I posted the truth (a rumor)...looking for a little back up....and cuz it's interesting to think about the possibilities. It sparks the imagination.
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  #45  
Old Posted Jan 17, 2020, 7:30 PM
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Look here's the meat of it.

Those of us who have been in this forum for well over a decade know that a lot of what has actually occured first began as "rumor and innuendo" when it comes to companies moving here or expanding, new highrises or airport news. Just look back over the old threads and you'll come across many subjects on projects and the like which first popped up as a "rumor" or "I heard on the grapevine". Some did not come to fruition, but many others did. There have been times when even news media have used our forum to pick up on certain projects before official announcements were released.

My point is I don't have a problem with rumors. It's what makes this forum fun to be apart of and creates conversation, frankly during a period that has been pretty slow when it comes to forum activity. I enjoy checking this forum and seeing tons of threads with new posts.

Anywho I guess I'm done for now.
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  #46  
Old Posted Jan 18, 2020, 10:48 AM
AustinGoesVertical AustinGoesVertical is offline
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I personally enjoy the speculation an initial post like this sparks because it leads to broader discussions about companies, their activities nationwide, and how they *might* fit into Austin. I don’t mind open ended rumors as long as there are at least some legs for them to stand on.

I know I myself have delivered info in the past. For the most part it’s panned out, but take Magellan’s building for example. I had a source for years who had said it 100% would happen even during the period when it looked dead, and the info appeared flat because it took 4 years for it to actually occur, but then it did. But it may not have. And just because it doesn’t happen, doesn’t mean it wasn’t true/planned at one point before something else caused it to fall through.

Speaking of which, I had what I felt was solid info that the school for the deaf on SoCo was sold to a developer. I floated it on here like urbancore did to see if others had heard similar. Some had. That said, six months later there’s been no official announcement or public scoop that I’ve seen.

Sometimes it’s just difficult to provide more details without exposing yourself or comprising your source. I came about a ton of info on start dates and GC/financing updates about 2 years ago and shared those generally, but didn’t want to share the exact name of the GC or equity partner — sometimes it’s not even an explicit confidentiality thing but just respect for the source. And that’s likely where UrbanCore stands. He’s heard about a big employer going to make an announcement (that’s still good info in isolation) but can’t provide specifics.

My theories:

There’s the possibility this new employer goes to project catalyst. From what I’ve heard, they’d certainly prefer a big tenant to anchor, customize, and drive that development (akin to Oracle) rather than build it out piecemeal as spec. It was one of Austin’s submitted sites to Amazon. But urban campuses in existing CBDs are increasingly popular too for the live/work/play lifestyle and there’s shorter runway.

So companies... I’ll lay out the case for four.

Amazon could very well be the employer. Plenty of jobs to distribute after HQ2 fell through. I think Austin would have been the perfect fit for the jobs/innovation center Nashville got and while I think Nashville will get more jobs from the NYC fallout, I think Austin could serve as a bigger hub rather than just a satellite office. You’ve got the drivers like the vast talent pool, no state income taxes for employees, lower cost of living generally, UT Austin, the capital/incubator scene is growing more, and of course there’s the Whole Foods synergy. First the distribution center in San Marcos, THEN a near 4 million SF one in Plugerville. Things are happening. And with Google and Facebook putting in stakes in the CBD, hard to see Amazon remaining just at the domain. The 800 jobs added there were unrelated to the 25K slated for NYC. Not hard to envision them leasing up significant space at 6 X Guad and being the anchor tenant at The Republic with possible naming rights. Funny story, saw Jeff Bezos walk out of One Eleven Congress into the new courtyard about a year ago. One colleague and a massive body guard flanked on each side. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Another is Salesforce. They’ve been employing a single tower strategy in a lot of cities. They outfit and convert existing ones or pre-lease on ground up projects. There’s a massive one that will support 2,800 jobs and is currently under construction in Chicago. Now they’re building an “HQ2” of sorts in Seattle after the Tableau acquisition, the HQ2 part said in jest by Marc Benioff. They already have their HQ in the iconic 1,000 ft Salesforce Tower, also in San Francisco and are building another high rise in the city that will house about 1,500 employees. While Salesforce really could make Seattle organically their HQ2 overtime, I think strategically, they could be in the market for a true central hub outside of the West Coast. At minimum, I think the Republic with brand rights should be in play given that Salesforce and the Austin ecosystem seem to fit like a glove. Tableau already has a presence here. Shocked Salesforce doesn’t have ANY physical presence in ATX. All 100 or so employees are supposedly remote. There’s some speculation founder Marc Benioff may be stepping away from his co-CEO role within a year or so. Who knows what type of restructuring could be in play at that point... would it involve the roll out of a new flagship urban campus somewhere like Austin? Maybe.

This is a longer shot but Charles Schwab. After the TD Ameritrade merger, they’re scaling back Omaha (TD’s HQ) and Schwab plans to vacate San Francisco significantly. Right now a new campus is planned for Westlake in the DFW area to house thousands of employees, but that fact is: Schwab likes Texas — for the no-state income tax and the cheaper office rent and the potent talent pool. They already have the 50-Acre Gracy Farms Campus in Austin, which supports about 2,000 employees. The thinking is that the scale-up in Westlake will take time but could balloon to 7,000 employees, but it doesn’t necessarily have to go all there. They maintain they’ll keep a sizeable presence in SF despite the official post-merger HQ being in the Dallas region. But this could all be a bluff. Austin may be a bit liberal for Chuck Schwab’s tastes (although 2K existing personnel already exist) and Dallas does have the leg-up in financial services reputation BUT business is fluid. Things change. Opportunities can become too good to pass on. San Fran rents and taxes are insane. Facebook, Uber, Lyft, Square, Twitter, Salesforce, Oracle, Airbnb, and Dropbox are all there. Schwab likes Texas. Not crazy to think more jobs flow away from California and south to Austin rather than just DFW as far as Texas strategy goes. Fin-tech is the future of that industry and Austin can cater to that much better than Dallas. I’m not sure it would eat up most existing inventory U/C and planned like the rumor purports, but it could at least be enough to support space in a planned tower... like maybe Tower 5c. It’s a bet for sure but with semi reasonable odds.

Even longer shot: WeWork. SoftBank bailed them out. They will have a real shot to stabilize their core business and see if it can ever stave off natural adoption from developers who simply build co-working directly into their models and self-manage or use brokerage/management firms that specialize in STR (should see more and more of these shops start to pop up. WeWork could in theory morph into this vertical itself). In any case, WeWork is sitting on the Lord & Taylor building as an owned asset, which was once conceived as their crown jewel NYC HQ but could in theory be fully leased up to a big player (Amazon was interested) and then sold off out of their portfolio. I do think WeWork will eventually realize margins are better on ownership vs. sub-leasing strategy (Novel CoWorking has found relative success with this formula). But that’s capital intensive, and they already have significant lease commitments that the new raise will have to cover. There’s still a ton of projected cash burn here either way. So maybe they shift more toward data-driven space consulting and brokerage while building out upsell opportunities to monetize their community (which they were trying to pitch in the IPO roadshow but I don’t think they had a tangible roadmap for this. Neumann was too much of an abstract dreamer, not one to execute such a revenue mining structure out of an existing membership base). It’s not their “core business” per se, but I’m not sure their core business has longevity and SoftBank may realize that and pivot. If they’re smart, they will. But we’re talking about the same group who was valuing this thing at $47 Billion while global co-working firm Regus (also known as US-subsidiary “SPACES”) was more stable and already public with more members and more importantly had operational profit and was valued at just $4b. But you can blame Goldman Sachs too. And big time. Surprise, surprise. Anyway, how this relates to WeWork and Austin. Given what we know about Lincoln, Kairoi, and WeWork’s continued involvement on the Waller Creek parcels, maybe Austin could be their new HQ... for the most part leaving NYC — at least as a company base. And maybe space requirements for such a shift could also include supporting Lincoln Co’s Republic OR 6 X Guad as well. Essentially, they target Austin to maintain the core business initially but ultimately shift to a tech-model where they can scale and become some sort of platform solution. At a post-money valuation of around $8b after the latest infusion, SoftBank has to know that the core business as it’s currently structured will never lead to an exit over that threshold. WeWork needs to become a tech-powered full-stack office solution with a scalable cost structure (I.e. where revenue can grow at rates higher than expense rates) to be a winner. Austin could be the perfect place to rebrand and build out this broken, but still salvageable enterprise as a tech-centric complimentary service to office property owners. WeWork still has roughly 10K employees after their recent layoffs. How many come to Austin if this were to happen? Do they reposition the employee mix and do more layoffs in favor of redistributing and hiring local tech talent? This would certainly qualify as a BIG announcement.

Last edited by AustinGoesVertical; Jan 18, 2020 at 9:35 PM.
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  #47  
Old Posted Jan 18, 2020, 12:26 PM
shoreditch shoreditch is offline
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This is not even rumoured and entirely in the vein of speculation (and hopefully someone smarter than me can burst my bubble), but is it crazy of me to think it could be SpaceX? Maybe not HQ but an engineering hub for them? Austin sits between McGregor test site and Boca Chica (where they seem to have gone all-in on Starship development to the point they've halted operations at the Cape), and SpaceX has already shown an affinity for preferring the Texas state tax structure/incentive packages. I know Musk likes to live in LA, but they also have greatly reduced their West Coast launches and stated they can't build their new rockets in California cause they're simply too large to use 18-wheelers to ship to FL. Would make sense to build em in Texas and use a barge to get them to FL for commercial launches (in addition to Boca Chica launches). Oh, and NASA is just down the road after all.

Tell me I'm loco haha.
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  #48  
Old Posted Jan 18, 2020, 2:33 PM
lonewolf lonewolf is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by AustinGoesVertical View Post
I personally enjoy the speculation an initial post like this sparks because it leads to broader discussions about companies, their activities nationwide, and how they *might* fit into Austin. I don’t mind open ended rumors as long as there are at least some legs for them to stand on.

I know I myself have delivered info in the past. For the most part it’s panned out, but take Magellan’s building for example. I had a source for years who had said it 100% would happen even during the period when it looked dead, and the info appeared flat because it took 4 years for it to actually occur, but then it did. But it may not have. And just because it doesn’t happen, doesn’t mean it wasn’t true/planned at one point before something else caused it to fall through.

Speaking of which, I had what I felt was solid info that the school for the deaf on SoCo was sold to a developer. I floated it on here like urbancore did to see if others had heard similar. Some had. That said, six months later there’s been no official announcement or public scoop that I’ve seen.

Sometimes it’s just difficult to provide more details without exposing yourself or comprising your source. I came about a ton of info on start dates and GC/financing updates about 2 years ago and shared those generally, but didn’t want to share the exact name of the GC or equity partner — sometimes it’s not even an explicit confidentiality thing but just respect for the source. And that’s likely where UrbanCore stands. He’s heard about a big employer going to make an announcement (that’s still good info in isolation) but can’t provide specifics.

My theories:

There’s the possibility this new employer goes to project catalyst. From what I’ve heard, they’d certainly prefer a big tenant to anchor, customize, and drive that development (akin to Oracle) rather than build it out piecemeal as spec. It was one of Austin’s submitted sites to Amazon. But urban campuses in existing CBDs are increasingly popular too for the live/work/play lifestyle and there’s shorter runway.

So companies... I’ll lay out the case for four.

Amazon could very well be the employer. Plenty of jobs to distribute after HQ2 fell through. I think Austin would have been the perfect fit for the jobs/innovation center Nashville got and while I think Nashville will get more jobs from the NYC fallout, I think Austin could serve as a bigger hub rather than just a satellite office. You’ve got the drivers like the vast talent pool, no state income taxes for employees, lower cost of living generally, UT Austin, the capital/incubator scene is growing more, and of course there’s the Whole Foods synergy. First the distribution center in San Marcos, THEN a near 4 million SF one in Plugerville. Things are happening. And with Google and Facebook putting in stakes in the CBD, hard to see Amazon remaining just at the domain. The 800 jobs added there were unrelated to the 25K slated for NYC. Not hard to envision them leasing up significant space at 6 X Guad and being the anchor tenant at The Republic with possible naming rights. Funny story, saw Jeff Bezos walk out of One Eleven Congress into the new courtyard about a year ago. One colleague and a massive body guard flanked on each side. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire.

Another is Salesforce. They’ve been employing a single tower strategy in a lot of cities. They outfit and convert existing ones or pre-lease on ground up projects. There’s a massive one that will support 2,800 jobs and is currently under construction in Chicago. Now they’re building an “HQ2” of sorts in Seattle after the Tableau acquisition, the HQ2 part said in jest by Marc Benioff. They already have their HQ in the iconic 1,000 ft Salesforce Tower, also in San Francisco and are building another high rise in the city that will house about 1,500 employees. While Salesforce really could make Seattle organically their HQ2 overtime, I think strategically, they could be in the market for a true central hub outside of the West Coast. At minimum, I think the Republic with brand rights should be in play given that Salesforce and the Austin ecosystem seem to fit like a glove. Tableau already has a presence here. Shocked Salesforce doesn’t have ANY physical presence in ATX. All 100 or so employees are supposedly remote. There’s some speculation founder Marc Benioff may be stepping away from his co-CEO role within a year or so. Who knows what type of restructuring could be in play at that point... would it involve the roll out of a new flagship urban campus somewhere like Austin? Maybe.

This is a longer shot but Charles Schwab. After the TD Ameritrade merger, they’re scaling back Omaha (TD’s HQ) and Schwab plans to vacate San Francisco significantly. Right now a new campus is planned for Westlake in the DFW area to house thousands of employees, but that fact is: Schwab likes Texas — for the no-state income tax and the cheaper office rent and the potent talent pool. They already have the 50-Acre Gracy Farms Campus in Austin, which supports about 2,000 employees. The thinking is that the scale-up in Westlake will take time but could balloon to 7,000 employees, but it doesn’t necessarily have to go all there. They maintain they’ll keep a sizeable presence in SF despite the official post-merger HQ being in the Dallas region. But this could all be a bluff. Austin may be a bit liberal for Chuck Schwab’s tastes (although 2K existing personnel already exist) and Dallas does have the leg-up in financial services reputation BUT business is fluid. Things change. Opportunities can become too good to pass on. San Fran rents and taxes are insane. Facebook, Uber, Lyft, Square, Twitter, Salesforce, Oracle, Airbnb, and Dropbox are all there. Schwab likes Texas. Not crazy to think more jobs flow away from California and south to Austin rather than just DFW as far as Texas strategy goes. Fun-tech is the future of that industry and Austin can cater to that much better than Dallas. I’m not sure it would eat up most existing inventory U/C and planned like the rumor purports, but it could at least be enough to support space in a planned tower... like maybe Tower 5c. It’s bet for sure but with semi reasonable odds.

Even longer shot: WeWork. SoftBank bailed them out. They will have a real shot to stabilize their core business and see if it can ever stave off natural adoption from developers who simply build co-working directly into their models and self-manage or use brokerage/management firms that specialize in STR (should see more and more of these shops start to pop up. WeWork could in theory morph into this vertical itself). In any case, WeWork is sitting on the Lord & Taylor building as an owned asset, which was once conceived as their crown jewel NYC HQ but could in theory be fully leased up to a big player (Amazon was interested) and then sold off out of their portfolio. I do think WeWork will eventually realize margins are better on ownership vs. sub-leasing strategy (Novel CoWorking has found relative success with this formula). But that’s capital intensive, and they already have significant lease commitments that the new raise will have to cover. There’s still a ton of projected cash burn here either way. So maybe they shift more toward data-driven space consulting and brokerage while building out upsell opportunities to monetize their community (which they were trying to pitch in the IPO roadshow but I don’t think they had a tangible roadmap for this. Neumann was too much of an abstract dreamer, not one to execute such a revenue mining structure out of an existing membership base). It’s not their “core business” per se, but I’m not sure their core business has longevity and SoftBank may realize that and pivot. If they’re smart, they will. But we’re talking about the same group who was valuing this thing at $47 Billion while global co-working firm Regus (also known as US-subsidiary “SPACES”) was more stable and already public with more members and more importantly had operational profit and was valued at just $4b. But you can blame Goldman Sachs too. And big time. Surprise, surprise. Anyway, how this relates to WeWork and Austin. Given what we know about Lincoln, Kairoi, and WeWork’s continued involvement on the Waller Creek parcels, maybe Austin could be their new HQ... for the most part leaving NYC — at least as a company base. And maybe space requirements for such a shift could also include supporting Lincoln Co’s Republic OR 6 X Guad as well. Essentially, they target Austin to maintain the core business initially but ultimately shift to a tech-model where they can scale and become some sort of platform solution. At a post-money valuation of around $8b after the latest infusion, SoftBank has to know that the core business as it’s currently structured will never lead to an exit over that threshold. WeWork needs to become a tech-powered full-stack office solution with a scalable cost structure (I.e. where revenue can grow at rates higher than expense rates) to be a winner. Austin could be the perfect place to rebrand and build out this broken, but still salvageable enterprise as a tech-centric complimentary service to office property owners. WeWork still has roughly 10K employees after their recent layoffs. How many come to Austin if this were to happen? Do they reposition the employee mix and do more layoffs in favor of redistributing and hiring local tech talent? This would certainly qualify as a BIG announcement.

schwab just announced HQ transfer to fort worth in November. they have massive facility there and are adding to it. don't see that happening here at equal scale.


and it won't be wework. i promise you. i've been involved in leasing commercial space to them in austin. there are talks of them adding here in a small capacity but even that is a coin toss.


good analysis though.
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  #49  
Old Posted Jan 18, 2020, 3:09 PM
We vs us We vs us is offline
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Great post AustinGoesVertical — lots of good thoughts there. I think especially the Salesforce and Amazon options have the best chances of coming true.

I’m more and more convinced that the Post Office site is being reserved for a Major Player in this vein, and that we’ll find out what will happen with it when we finally officially hear from Major Player.
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  #50  
Old Posted Jan 18, 2020, 3:55 PM
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Originally Posted by shoreditch View Post
This is not even rumoured and entirely in the vein of speculation (and hopefully someone smarter than me can burst my bubble), but is it crazy of me to think it could be SpaceX? Maybe not HQ but an engineering hub for them? Austin sits between McGregor test site and Boca Chica (where they seem to have gone all-in on Starship development to the point they've halted operations at the Cape), and SpaceX has already shown an affinity for preferring the Texas state tax structure/incentive packages. I know Musk likes to live in LA, but they also have greatly reduced their West Coast launches and stated they can't build their new rockets in California cause they're simply too large to use 18-wheelers to ship to FL. Would make sense to build em in Texas and use a barge to get them to FL for commercial launches (in addition to Boca Chica launches). Oh, and NASA is just down the road after all.

Tell me I'm loco haha.


Interesting thought...

Consider that Austin is now home to the U.S. Army Futures Command. It's presence here will bring in lots of jobs. What type of companies would want to be close to it?

Interesting times indeed.
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  #51  
Old Posted Jan 18, 2020, 4:02 PM
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Since we're all speculating, it's notable that Microsoft is also seriously crunched in Seattle by skyhigh housing costs. All of these major tech companies need to draw from similar labor markets and Amazon is creating a lot of headaches for Microsoft in the Seattle area. Amazon now has more employees in greater SEA than Microsoft and is planning large office growth in Bellevue, right next to Redmond.

The whole Riverside Corridor is primed for not just Project Catalyst but also the secondary effects that flow from it, especially with the Blue Line.

Thus, Microsoft might be the big sleeper waiting in the wings.
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  #52  
Old Posted Jan 18, 2020, 7:54 PM
StoOgE StoOgE is offline
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As a former finance guy: There just aren't enough people in Austin for someone like Schwab to become a major player.

Austin has been a hub of back-office operations jobs in finance for smaller companies only.

Schwab has a phone bank in North Austin. There are smaller players like NFP and Lion Street that are back-office ops jobs. There are a few fund families in town, DFA again is mostly the boring back-office stuff where the real power-players are in their California office.

Schwab is only in Austin because they bought out an old e-trading platform in the 90s and their HQ is destined for DFW.

Austin has a lot of VC money, but those are smaller boutique investment offices. And then you are talking pension funds that are again not big office counts.

Dallas and Houston are the financial capitals of Texas and unless Austin wants a bunch of 35-45K a year jobs like Tampa has it's not gonna be a major industry of expansion for the foreseeable future.
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  #53  
Old Posted Jan 18, 2020, 10:01 PM
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Originally Posted by shoreditch View Post
This is not even rumoured and entirely in the vein of speculation (and hopefully someone smarter than me can burst my bubble), but is it crazy of me to think it could be SpaceX? Maybe not HQ but an engineering hub for them? Austin sits between McGregor test site and Boca Chica (where they seem to have gone all-in on Starship development to the point they've halted operations at the Cape), and SpaceX has already shown an affinity for preferring the Texas state tax structure/incentive packages. I know Musk likes to live in LA, but they also have greatly reduced their West Coast launches and stated they can't build their new rockets in California cause they're simply too large to use 18-wheelers to ship to FL. Would make sense to build em in Texas and use a barge to get them to FL for commercial launches (in addition to Boca Chica launches). Oh, and NASA is just down the road after all.

Tell me I'm loco haha.
I wouldn't be surprised if we were able to ride a spaceship from downtown Lamar before we're able to ride a train from it.
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  #54  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2020, 12:25 AM
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Originally Posted by mumu View Post
Since we're all speculating, it's notable that Microsoft is also seriously crunched in Seattle by skyhigh housing costs. All of these major tech companies need to draw from similar labor markets and Amazon is creating a lot of headaches for Microsoft in the Seattle area. Amazon now has more employees in greater SEA than Microsoft and is planning large office growth in Bellevue, right next to Redmond.

The whole Riverside Corridor is primed for not just Project Catalyst but also the secondary effects that flow from it, especially with the Blue Line.

Thus, Microsoft might be the big sleeper waiting in the wings.
My first thought was Microsoft as well.
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  #55  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2020, 3:14 AM
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  #56  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2020, 5:08 AM
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Funny you posted this. I just spoke with a close relative in the alcohol industry and he told me that Tito is working on something "huge." However, not even his close friends know exactly what it is. He's been extremely quiet about it.
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  #57  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2020, 5:10 AM
AustinGoesVertical AustinGoesVertical is offline
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Originally Posted by lonewolf View Post
schwab just announced HQ transfer to fort worth in November. they have massive facility there and are adding to it. don't see that happening here at equal scale.


and it won't be wework. i promise you. i've been involved in leasing commercial space to them in austin. there are talks of them adding here in a small capacity but even that is a coin toss.


good analysis though.
Thanks. This why I think this sub-portion of the forum is great. We can all provide additional commentary, and rule out potential companies by process of elimination. That's good info on WeWork. I wonder what their real involvement will be on that Waller Creek development. Their NYC address was still registered on the Waller Creek Owner, LLC per that Towers report even after Lincoln Co. and Kairoi stepped in.
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  #58  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2020, 5:40 AM
AustinGoesVertical AustinGoesVertical is offline
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Originally Posted by GoldenBoot View Post
Funny you posted this. I just spoke with a close relative in the alcohol industry and he told me that Tito is working on something "huge." However, not even his close friends know exactly what it is. He's been extremely quiet about it.
I've actually heard specifics about this (assuming it's what your relative was told) and it would be an interesting thing for sure, but it shouldn't lead to much in the way of development. Tito's is 100% owned and licensed by Fifth Generation, Inc. which is entirely owned by Tito himself. Their corporate headcount isn't huge. I just don't see them needing a lot of office space square footage. Now maybe he could sell the brand to a conglomerate, but you'd wonder where it would office out of. He seems pretty content having sole ownership, but everyone wants liquidity in the brand's value beyond income at some point and that only happens through partial/complete acquisition or IPO. Not the "huge" thing I heard though.

Tangent: I don't know what the deal is with Deep Eddy Vodka but they've certainly been trying to masquerade themselves as a Tito's subsidiary. Some of it is just natural consumer confusion and association, but I've also heard they've been pulling some backhanded stunts when marketing it for distribution. Like saying it's related or selling ludicrous backstories. They even told one restaurant on 2nd street that Tito had sold the company and didn't even make it in Austin anymore and convinced them to switch to Deep Eddy because of that fact.

Last edited by AustinGoesVertical; Jan 19, 2020 at 6:06 AM.
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  #59  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2020, 5:48 AM
AustinGoesVertical AustinGoesVertical is offline
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Originally Posted by StoOgE View Post
As a former finance guy: There just aren't enough people in Austin for someone like Schwab to become a major player.

Austin has been a hub of back-office operations jobs in finance for smaller companies only.

Schwab has a phone bank in North Austin. There are smaller players like NFP and Lion Street that are back-office ops jobs. There are a few fund families in town, DFA again is mostly the boring back-office stuff where the real power-players are in their California office.

Schwab is only in Austin because they bought out an old e-trading platform in the 90s and their HQ is destined for DFW.

Austin has a lot of VC money, but those are smaller boutique investment offices. And then you are talking pension funds that are again not big office counts.

Dallas and Houston are the financial capitals of Texas and unless Austin wants a bunch of 35-45K a year jobs like Tampa has it's not gonna be a major industry of expansion for the foreseeable future.
I agree Austin doesn't fit the traditional ingredients that would be a prime spot for financial services. But I do think Austin has the tech ecosystem required for innovation and that the industry is beginning to adopt technology more than ever before. That's why I put them as a long shot -- #3 on my list, but well below Amazon/Salesforce. They're not likely to fit the bill for the HUGE employment/office alluded to in the rumor, but I am wondering if they could deploy a fin-tech team down here. Might not be an anchor tenant of a new building, but I could see them establishing some small footprint downtown with this focus in mind.
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  #60  
Old Posted Jan 19, 2020, 5:56 AM
AustinGoesVertical AustinGoesVertical is offline
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Originally Posted by We vs us View Post
Great post AustinGoesVertical — lots of good thoughts there. I think especially the Salesforce and Amazon options have the best chances of coming true.

I’m more and more convinced that the Post Office site is being reserved for a Major Player in this vein, and that we’ll find out what will happen with it when we finally officially hear from Major Player.
Thanks! I think even if the big player isn't Amazon or Salesforce, we're primed to see both of those companies add a footprint downtown. Amazon might lease up some of the existing pipeline that is U/C (significant space in 6 X Guad for example) to move quicker.

But it's Salesforce I could see really wanting to put their name on a single tower though and consolidating everyone in one building. That's where I see them driving the pre-leasing for either The Republic or Tower 5c and being a majority tenant in either.

But you're right, something is bound to happen with the post office site. Let's say Amazon goes into 6 X Guad. It doesn't preclude them from wanting to be a part of a new development across the street.

This is what happened with Parsley Energy and Colorado Tower. They were a big tenant in 3rd & Colorado, needed more space, and low and behold they built their own true HQ right across the street.
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