256 replies to this topic

[John T Roberts]

I think that part of the reason for this is that our City has thought that regionalism is the way to approach attracting business.  Maybe it's time to compete with neighboring cities on a head to head basis, and if we lose a new business coming in, then we have lost on our own merits.  We also could possibly lose every new business that is interested in the DFW area, but if we take this approach, someone will notice.  There is a chance this new philosophy could backfire, but it might be worth taking the risk.

[360texas]

<Thinking out loud >

  

If you want to encourage them to relocate to the Fort Worth area... the city has to create a NEED for companies to relocate here. 

Find out what the companies need .... and satisfy their need.

 

</Thinking out loud >

[rriojas71]

 but I'll never bury me head in the sand about how complacent and weak this city has been in allowing the eastern metro to overtake us in office jobs and corporate growth.  

 

 

 

Yes I am definitely 100% behind you with this statement

[renamerusk]

<Thinking out loud >

  

If you want to encourage them to relocate to the Fort Worth area... the city has to create a NEED for companies to relocate here. 

Find out what the companies need .... and satisfy their need.

 

</Thinking out loud >

I am encouraging more appreciation for what FW is doing and less emphasis upon what the free market determines.

 

An analogy using the Olympic was made to compare FW to another city suggesting that a settling for the bronze is always bad.  This would be true if there was only one event contested in the Olympics, but the truth is that there are multiple events; and that the competitors typically participate in one area of competition.  So, the parable is: Fort Worth is competing in a different event from another city, near or far: The FW competes in two events: Logistics and Tourism.

 

FW is not competing with Austin, TX; and if another city is attempting to compete with Austin, then that is where the bronze is being awarded. Austin has leveraged its natural assets: Education, Government and Tourism.  Today it is a powerhouse and its has reached parity with the Texas' two historical centers of power and economics. 

 

FW has been carving out a path for which I believe is patterned after Austin, TX.  I feel that FW beginning to receive "medals" for that effort.

 

I will continue to appreciate what FW is experiencing and believe, just at what occurred in Austin, can happen here once FW has enough ingredients.

 

Honestly, sometimes I feel like I am the only one consistently voicing appreciation for what is happening for FW in regards to L&T!

[eastfwther]

I will continue to appreciate what FW is experiencing and believe, just at what occurred in Austin, can happen here once FW has enough ingredients.

 

 

Honestly, sometimes I feel like I am the only one voicing appreciation for what is happening for FW in regards to L&T!

 

You do know you can appreciate the positives of a city as well as point of the issue(s) you deem as negative.  There's tons of appreciation and love for Fort Worth on this forum.  However, any decent forum allows for good, civil discussions on negatives as well as the positives.  And keep in mind, most of us are in no position to change anything.  If DTFW becomes a major tourist hub and all of our downtown buildings become hotels, so be it.  Luckily,  the Dallas metro seems to be creating enough white collar office  jobs for both cities.  

[roverone]

I completely understand that every city will by its nature have its own strengths, but there are also fundamentals that have to be met about having enough overall economic input to support the needs of the city: infrastructure; education; needs for the economically challenged.

 

I feel like we have grown an unbalanced economy in our city that does not have enough economic benefit from commercial sources to meet our needs in the long run.

 

I'll give you a rough example -- these are just very approximate -- Dallas property tax rate is about 2-3% less than our city (that is a percent of a percent, so don't let that be too confusing) but if I look at the cities' budgets divided by their populations, Dallas spends on the order of 45% more per citizen.  That's dollars that can go to a lot of things.

 

I want our city to work on both sides: helping out with all of our needs, but also building out a balanced commercial economic strength so we can pay for it.

[renamerusk]

Who is against commercial economic strength;not me. To simplify the "needs for the economically challenged" as having a white collar job or that white collar workers will be the salvation of FW dismisses the real prospect that  FW can have a productive economy by capitalizing on its genetic framework.

 

Blame FW less, and Texas more specifically, for the state placing in the lower 3rd of education nationally and for its funding of education based upon property taxes.  Public Education is a states responsibility and infrastructure is a federal responsibility.  Commercial development is a free market responsibility.

 

The jobs that are more likely to be filled by the alleged "economically challenged" are just the jobs that are being created in FW for FW citizens. The academic skills of many people who call FW home just do not align with the jobs that you think we are missing out on.  Now that companies are being forced to provide livable wages to non-white collar jobs, there will be more money circulating in FW that will ultimately make its way into education and infrastructure. 

 

Companies do not pay taxes; wage earners do.

 

I do think as companies give higher wages to non-white collar workers then the children of these blue collar workers will be able afford higher education who can then fill the jobs, both white collar and blue collar and make the local economy stronger.  If you ignore the present day need of employing FW population today, you leave it little opportunity in resources to improve the skills of FW future generations..

 

By all account, FW seems to be addressing the job needs that characterizes its population today.  If you want a highly skilled population, make public education a top priority; maybe become a Boston, a city that is known for prioritizing education.

 

The fact, as I see it, is that FW is offering local jobs today that can and will improve the lives of its residents and their children going forward. DTFW is not the answer or the economic driver that it once was. This has actually straying from the topic of DTFW except that DTFW is evolving and it does not necessarily need or will it inherit high rises to be a successful district.  If a developer does decide to do a project, that is great, but it is up to the private sector to make the determination where it builds.  Right now, developers are seeing DTFW as a hospitality and tourism center.  Frankly, that is just fine with me.

[John T Roberts]

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram is reporting that approximately 1/3 of the retail spaces in Downtown are vacant.  The article was written by Gordon Dickson and Luke Ranker.  If you have online access to the paper, it is an interesting read.  Below is the link:

 

https://www.star-tel...e252313448.html

[johnfwd]

I couldn't read the article.  I wonder how much of that was caused by the pandemic.

[renamerusk]

I choose not to pay to read S-T.

 

JTR, what were the salient points?

 

That aside, I will once again state that DTFW is plagued by a corporation who controls 1/4 of DTFW, you know SSq. who has lost its groove. 

 

There is ample evidence that the pandemic is not the lingering problem when you are witnessing the revitalization of the FWSY, CD, new hotels, etc. The signs of a slide within a section of DTFW was beginning to be evident before any pandemic.

 

It will eventually become necessary for SSq to do something in a massive way - a major high rise/residential/hotel/office project that is happening in peer cities across the US.  It is time for SSq to" fish or cut bait".  Honestly, I wish that SSq would go up for sale to a 21st Century Billionaire or developer; an entity like Majestic Realty or Crescent that can turn SSq around.

[John T Roberts]

The S-T reporters did a spot check on retail vacancies in Downtown.  They only analyzed this by actual number of retail spaces and they came up with approximately 1/3 of the number of spaces are vacant.  Downtown Fort Worth, Inc. did their own survey and based it on actual square footage.  If you go by DFWI's estimate, the vacancy rate is lower.  Retail experts around the country are saying that after the pandemic, 30 percent vacancy is about average for downtown areas.  Many are optimistic that Downtown will recover fairly rapidly.  There were many points in the article, but those were just the bare bones.

[Austin55]

Great article. If you did not hear, Luke Ranker will only be around a few more months as he is going to grad school pursuing a dgree in urban planning. 

On a side note, DFWI updated their downtown development map. Nothing new on there, but a nice gauge of what's going on. 

[renamerusk]

The article is paywalled, but Business Insider has done a wrap up of potential places to lure relocations. ....I can briefly see BOA Tower, Burnett Plaza, 777 Main, 115 West 7th (Former Oncor tower), Binyon O'Keefe the Petroleum Building, 500 Taylor Street and Panther Island.

 

 

DR Horton's new HQ in Arlington is 200k square feet... there is only one building in downtown Fort Worth that could accommodate a company needing as much space as DR Horton- the former Oncor Building.   The above article suggests that there are no buildings in downtown Fort Worth that could accommodate a company needing only half as much space as either of these two companies.

 

 

..... I will once again state that DTFW is plagued by a corporation who controls 1/4 of DTFW, you know SSq. who has lost its groove. 

 

There is ample evidence that the pandemic is not the lingering problem when you are witnessing the revitalization of the FWSY, CD, new hotels, etc. The signs of a slide within a section of DTFW was beginning to be evident before any pandemic.

 

It will eventually become necessary for SSq to do something in a massive way - a major high rise/residential/hotel/office project that is happening in peer cities across the US.  It is time for SSq to" fish or cut bait".  Honestly, I wish that SSq would go up for sale to a 21st Century Billionaire or developer; an entity like Majestic Realty or Crescent that can turn SSq around.

 

 Eureka..here is the info about Austin, Texas that I have been searching for such a long time.  How does Austin do it! Here is its Mixed Use Blueprint -

 

https://austintexas....mu_overview.pdf

[Austin55]

DFWI is (or has, the deadline is past) soliciting RFPs to update the Downtown Strategic Action Plan. The existing Plan 2023, as you might guess from the name, is nearing the end of its lifespan.

 

https://www.dfwi.org...-qualifications

[Austin55]

Downtown ranked 5th in nation for most apartment growth, trailing only NYC, LA, Atlanta and D.C.

https://www.rentcafe...-neighborhoods/

[MorganRehnberg]

Austin, does that seem right to you? Tons of apartments have gone up in West 7th, Near Southside, etc., but I cant think of that many in downtown proper.

[Stadtplan]

If they are including PID #1, PID #14 and TIF #3, would that still generate those figures?

 

From DFWI:

 

 

2017:

 

2020:

[Austin55]

Austin, does that seem right to you? Tons of apartments have gone up in West 7th, Near Southside, etc., but I cant think of that many in downtown proper.

Yeh, after you brought it up something seemed off. 

I noticed this blurb under the methodology section of the article, 
 

 

Neighborhood mapping was based on neighborhood boundaries on rentcafe.com.

So going on Rentcafe and searching out the downtown neighborhood reveals that they consider "downtown" to also encompass all of Near Southside and the River East areas too. 

 

Given those wildly large boundaries I'm actually surprised the number isn't higher. 

 

[John T Roberts]

I agree with you, Austin about the numbers.

 

The boundary is crazy.

[johnfwd]

Yes, the boundary is far more extensive than Downtown Fort Worth, Inc.'s map (see Post# 51) which is our downtown bounded on the north by Belknap, east by Jones Street, west by Henderson, and south by Lancaster.  But, I believe the Downtown Urban Design District map boundary is more extensive that DFWi's.  See page 9 of the excerpt from the city's website below.

 

https://www.fortwort...-district-1.pdf

 

We've had this discussion here in the past.  It is my belief the boundaries of a downtown are perceived to be wider, obviously, if the downtown continues to grow outward.  Just look at how widespread is downtown Dallas today on account of its considerable building construction beginning in the middle of the last century.  By comparison, however, the boundary of our downtown appears to be more visibly defined as an "island," by eyeball perspective to the westbound motorist on I-30 just before the Beach Street exit.  One day in the distant future, that "island" will probably be larger than it is today.

[John T Roberts]

One day, the "island" may actually include Panther Island.

[rriojas71]

Distant future is definitely more of a reality.  LOL

 

Fort Worth's downtown is definitely more of an island or at least in it's current state it can be called a peninsula...  if you look at the map above it is bounded on 3 sides by the Trinity River which help forms the peninsula to create a natural barrier and on the souther side it is blocked off by the freeway and railroad tracks.  Those are definitely more of a challenge than what Dallas' downtown faces because the river in Dallas is only on one side and feels much more disconnected to their downtown than it does with ours.

[johnfwd]

Distant future is definitely more of a reality.  LOL

 

Fort Worth's downtown is definitely more of an island or at least in it's current state it can be called a peninsula...  if you look at the map above it is bounded on 3 sides by the Trinity River which help forms the peninsula to create a natural barrier and on the southe side it is blocked off by the freeway and railroad tracks.  Those are definitely more of a challenge than what Dallas' downtown faces because the river in Dallas is only on one side and feels much more disconnected to their downtown than it does with ours.

You are correct to the extent that downtown is naturally blocked on the east by the tracks and the west by the river.  That leaves the south, which is connectible despite I-30, because of Main and Henderson streets,  And the north, because of bridge access to Panther Island and points beyond that.  I foresee some high-rise building construction, someday, beyond the bluff which would perceivably be an extension of downtown.

[Austin55]

Dallas Business Journal did a nice piece on downtown with some juicy tidbits. They interviewed DFWI president Andy Taft.

https://www.bizjourn...fort-worth.html

 

Taft said there are three more residential highrise projects in the works and the developers of all 3 have already acquired the land. He also said the availability of land is one of the biggest factors. 

On office, Taft said that there is too much vacancy and too low of prices for anything big and new unless a significant relocation occurs. 

[Jeriat]

Dallas Business Journal did a nice piece on downtown with some juicy tidbits. They interviewed DFWI president Andy Taft.

https://www.bizjourn...fort-worth.html

 

Taft said there are three more residential highrise projects in the works and the developers of all 3 have already acquired the land. He also said the availability of land is one of the biggest factors. 

On office, Taft said that there is too much vacancy and too low of prices for anything big and new unless a significant relocation occurs. 

...I'm listening. 

[GenX]

Just typical rehash of the same old same old story from Andy Taft. Those three "highrise projects" in the end will be typical Fort Worth eight story apartments. "May see small office buildings built" ? Yet ? Read what he said in 2019 ! What a contradiction ? I'm not buying what he is selling. https://www.dfwi.org...t-worth-by-2022

[eastfwther]

 

On office, Taft said that there is too much vacancy and too low of prices for anything big and new unless a significant relocation occurs. 

I hate to sound salty, but this excuse seems to only apply to Fort Worth and Tarrant County.  The other heavily populated counties in DFW, not so much. 

[rriojas71]

Dallas Business Journal did a nice piece on downtown with some juicy tidbits. They interviewed DFWI president Andy Taft.

https://www.bizjourn...fort-worth.html

 

Taft said there are three more residential highrise projects in the works and the developers of all 3 have already acquired the land. He also said the availability of land is one of the biggest factors. 

On office, Taft said that there is too much vacancy and too low of prices for anything big and new unless a significant relocation occurs. 

Thanks for the summary Austin...  unfortunately the rest is behind a paywall but like others have said, Andy Taft has repeated a lot of these same talking point before.  I'm optimistic but won't be excited until I see ground being broken

[Jeriat]

Just typical rehash of the same old same old story from Andy Taft. Those three "highrise projects" in the end will be typical Fort Worth eight story apartments. "May see small office buildings built" ? Yet ? Read what he said in 2019 ! What a contradiction ? I'm not buying what he is selling. https://www.dfwi.org...t-worth-by-2022

 

I actually prefer to be optimistic this time, given the new leadership and all... 

[Austin55]

I'm definitely curious who/where these projects could be. That they already own the land is an interesting tidbit.

[GenX]

 

Just typical rehash of the same old same old story from Andy Taft. Those three "highrise projects" in the end will be typical Fort Worth eight story apartments. "May see small office buildings built" ? Yet ? Read what he said in 2019 ! What a contradiction ? I'm not buying what he is selling. https://www.dfwi.org...t-worth-by-2022

 

I actually prefer to be optimistic this time, given the new leadership and all... 

 

 

 By all means please do. But I'm fed up with all the hype, and no do ? Year after year excuse after excuse from these same people. 

[GenX]

 

 

On office, Taft said that there is too much vacancy and too low of prices for anything big and new unless a significant relocation occurs. 

I hate to sound salty, but this excuse seems to only apply to Fort Worth and Tarrant County.  The other heavily populated counties in DFW, not so much. 

 

  

Yep.

[Crestline]

Dallas Business Journal did a nice piece on downtown with some juicy tidbits. They interviewed DFWI president Andy Taft.

https://www.bizjourn...fort-worth.html

 

Taft said there are three more residential highrise projects in the works and the developers of all 3 have already acquired the land. He also said the availability of land is one of the biggest factors. 

On office, Taft said that there is too much vacancy and too low of prices for anything big and new unless a significant relocation occurs. 

 

This appears to be a DFWI mirror of some of the DBJ article contents:

 

https://www.dfwi.org...town-fort-worth

[Jeriat]

 

 

Just typical rehash of the same old same old story from Andy Taft. Those three "highrise projects" in the end will be typical Fort Worth eight story apartments. "May see small office buildings built" ? Yet ? Read what he said in 2019 ! What a contradiction ? I'm not buying what he is selling. https://www.dfwi.org...t-worth-by-2022

 

I actually prefer to be optimistic this time, given the new leadership and all... 

 

 

 By all means please do. But I'm fed up with all the hype, and no do ? 

And you think I'm not? 

I complain about that more than anyone else here. Yet, I still choose to be more optimistic about it because of who's in office right now, where as previous leadership was older and leaning more into being "the world's largest small town".

I don't agree with Mattie Parker on some things, but the wanting to get out of the shadow of Dallas is not only something I stand behind, but it's also something I've BEEN saying for years on and off this forum. It's someone who's at least trying to be more realistic about where this city is and moving forward on that front. 

Time will tell like always, but I said what I said and believe more in the future.

[GenX]

Jeriat. Oh come on. I know you are smart to know I was being rhetorical. You seem to think every post I make is amid at you ? It's not I assure you of that. Frankly I go out of my way to avoid any with you. If I agree with you or not ? I'm very much aware how you get on Twitter. lol

 

I know some here if not most disagree with me on various subjects. And that's ok ! I respect the passion the members here have for this city. And how Fort Worth forum members come to this forum, want a much more deeper understand of how this city is developed. Than many of those outside the forum. How could I not respect that ? To me it's not about who is more critical of city leaders I could care less. 

 

Having said all that. I know Dallas, Austin, Frisco and so on. That those cities don't have a magic touch. Whatever they touch don't always turn into gold. Even they had projects that had the plug pulled out. Those cities screw up also. And I love how Fort Worth is a far better city than many in the U.S. But this city has totally lost it's way in downtown development in the most critical time of it's history. With no time to spare. In my opinion.

 

My attitude towards city development and city leaders can best be demonstrated by the 1986 comedy "The Money Pit" Walter Felding (Tom Hanks) Walter and his wife Anna try very very hard to stay positive of the home they just bought as things quickly go south. I also believed and try to stay positive about downtown development once upon a time. But like in the movie disappointment one after another finally got the best of Walter when the bathtub fell through the floor. That was the finally straw and Walter went berserk and went into a hysterical laugh. Well that is ME towards downtown development. Me Walter Felding staring down a hole in a frustrating laugh. lol

 

So when is Fort Worth getting a new 50 story office building ? "Two weeks" (Ongoing Money pit movie line reference) lol Come to think of it ? I wish I chose "Walter Fielding" not GenX as my forum name ? haha 

[eastfwther]

 

So when is Fort Worth getting a new 50 story office building ? "Two weeks" (Ongoing Money pit movie line reference) lol Come to think of it ? I wish I chose "Walter Fielding" not GenX as my forum name ? haha 

In regards to development, Fort Worth is very much "don't believe it till you see it".  City government has been talking about soon to be built skyscrapers since the mid to late 90's! We're still waiting on that new highrise condo building the Bass' ARE going to build in Sundance Square, first mentioned around,  what, the mid 90's?  

 

There was a news report this morning about the new highrise apartment building going  up downtown and right in the report it said the building has taken five years to get off the ground.  Five years for a building, the like of which Dallas, Houston & Austin seem to put up daily.  

 

I've mentioned several times that this is the city where a 37 story office  tower (Bank One)  was replaced with a 12 story one (Chase Building) while  at the same time city leaders talked about how strong the demand was for downtown office space.        ( So demand is so strong that no developer would put up a comparable tower?...25 stories shorter?  )

 

So I suggest to put little trust in what these people say in regards to downtown development, especially office space.  All cities have developments that fall through, but so much in DTFW  never gets further than a quote in a news article. 

[Austin55]

Fort Worth Report with a nice article on downtown. 

https://fortworthrep...-downtown-boom/

[txbornviking]

Fort Worth Report with a nice article on downtown. 

https://fortworthrep...-downtown-boom/

 

"“As we grow the number of jobs and residents in the core and transit demand increases, we should see more transit service and additional transit options,” he said. “The streetcar idea will have its day at the intersection of higher density, development cluster growth, congestion, parking pressure in the form of both availability and cost, funding sources and public will.”"

[Dylan]

The city just took over a large office building (Pier 1) that could've been used to attract a large company. The lot that the city could've built a new city hall on will remain a dump for quite some time.

 

The other large HQ built around the same time Pier 1 was built (Radio Shack) is now TCC's Trinity River campus. It could've been used to attract a large company if TCC had built out their original plan instead.

 

XTO left a few years ago, and many of their former office buildings are becoming hotels. So, that's more office space Downtown Fort Worth is losing.

 

Downtown Fort Worth is actively losing office space with each passing year. Meanwhile, the city's population is continuing to grow, and people are having to commute east for employment.

 

At present, there is no room in downtown for the city to attract a large company looking for a large amount of office space.

 

 

 

The state of Downtown Fort Worth is poor, and it's not entirely the pandemic's fault.

[Jeriat]

 

 

At present, there is no room in downtown for the city to attract a large company looking for a large amount of office space.

 

 

 

The state of Downtown Fort Worth is poor, and it's not entirely the pandemic's fault.

 

I'm sorry... "no room"?

[Dylan]

I'm sorry... "no room"?

 

Not for a large company looking for large amounts of contiguous office space. Though, there is space in many downtown buildings for small companies to move into.

[roverone]

Although this cannot be fully said about every one of those older office buildings, an alternate perspective to take is that by removing the square footage of these older buildings that do not have modern amenities, it may create a better business case to construct some newer, true Class A office space that modern businesses would prefer to relocate in.

 

Much of our commercial office stock is in need of being refreshed.  One thing to consider is that Galderma move from alliance to Downtown Dallas was to Trammel Crow Center -- but after that building had a $135M renovation.

[johnfwd]

Although this cannot be fully said about every one of those older office buildings, an alternate perspective to take is that by removing the square footage of these older buildings that do not have modern amenities, it may create a better business case to construct some newer, true Class A office space that modern businesses would prefer to relocate in.

 

Much of our commercial office stock is in need of being refreshed.  One thing to consider is that Galderma move from alliance to Downtown Dallas was to Trammel Crow Center -- but after that building had a $135M renovation.

Good point!  I'd be interested in seeing a study as to how many downtown buildings pre-date the 1960s, after which (I guess) is the "modern era" of FWDT construction.

 

If I may add, philosophically, here in past discussions the issue seemed to be whether converting downtown for more hospitality would create more tourism and, consequently, attract corporations to downtown.  In other words, more hotels. I hope I got that discussion right.  Also, I'm wondering if the increase in residential development downtown will attract out-of-state corporations--the idea being if an executive can live downtown the executive would likely wish to have an office downtown.  This would go against the trend for large-acreage corporate campuses located on the fringes of the city.

[Stadtplan]

Although this cannot be fully said about every one of those older office buildings, an alternate perspective to take is that by removing the square footage of these older buildings that do not have modern amenities, it may create a better business case to construct some newer, true Class A office space that modern businesses would prefer to relocate in.

 

Much of our commercial office stock is in need of being refreshed.  One thing to consider is that Galderma move from alliance to Downtown Dallas was to Trammel Crow Center -- but after that building had a $135M renovation.

 

Good point, roverone.  Part of that renovation of the Trammell Crow Center included a major DAS (Distributed Antenna System) upgrade.  The realization was that major business deals were being conducted in that building but there were challenges in maintaining the continuity of cell phone signals with certain carriers.  Apparently one of the executives said that without dropping his phone call, he wanted to pull in to the parking garage, get on the elevator and go up to his office and never lose signal.

 

In the article above, Anthracite president Laura Bird mentioned that downtown offices at the time couldn’t support what they needed in terms of technology.  I was thinking a lot about that statement in relation to the uphill battle some companies face in renovating an older office building (by older it could be only 20-30 years old or newer, so not just historic renovations).  I made a small list of things off the top of my head that some but not all companies might consider to be an issue with choosing an older office building.  Let me know if you think of any others:

• Energy efficiency (building envelope, windows, HVAC systems / controls, lighting, power consumption)
• Technology infrastructure (IDF, MDF closets for tele-data distribution)
• Construction costs of bringing in faster ISP (internet service provider) such as fiber
• Lack of a small in-house server room
• Lack of redundancy in emergency back-up power (ie generators) for servers and server cooling
• Lack of UPS power (uninterruptible power supply) for servers and switches
• Lack of modern lighting control systems with daylight harvesting technology
• Power distribution for office furniture / cubical systems (floor fed vs wall fed) and lack of raised floor in office
• Poor cell phone signal / lack of distributed antenna system
• Public Safety DAS for emergency responders (this is code)
• Out-of-date access control system (badge readers, elevator controls)
• Out-of-date video surveillance system (cameras that are not high enough resolution and don't use latest technology for PTZ tracking etc)
• Overall general physical security such as shared elevators, shared parking garage and not being able to have ultimate control over those areas to protect employees.
• Privacy and vulnerabilities to highly sensitive information (projects or clients) such as defense contractors, design firms, financial firms, law firms etc.
• Lacking modern audio / visual systems for conferencing (zoom / teams rooms)

These can be very expensive upgrades for either the building owner or the tenant to finish out and likely weigh heavily in the go / no-go decision on choosing an older building vs a newer one that may have some of these features available ready to-go.

[JBB]

There was an idea pushed here (by here, I mean on the forum by a member that's now gone) when XTO announced their departure that taking all of that class B space off of the market would drive demand for new class A space.  I never understood that logic.  I'm no economist or real estate expert, but I would think that removing supply of either class A or class B from the market would be a sign of weakness and do nothing to improve demand.

[txbornviking]

20 years ago today, an F1 tornado bounced through Lindwood and the West 7th area, then ripped through the heart of downtown

https://en.wikipedia...ornado_outbreak
 

[John T Roberts]

Txbornviking, I was in that tornado when it passed through Downtown, and your date is off.  It was March 28, 2000, not 2002.  Therefore, today is the 22nd anniversary.

[Doohickie]

Yep.  22 years.

[txbornviking]

yea... not sure why I let that typo slip through, ha

[gdvanc]

forgot to add in the pandemic years? they've certainly made me have to think harder about how long ago things happened.