AUSTIN | Economic Development
 

Heard a rumor to expect a BIG announcement this year (sooner than later) from a major employer. I know more, but can’t say.

If it goes down, needless to say, Austin skyline will never be the same (I know).....again. Hoping on hope.

I understand if you can't tell us specifics but could you answer this one question:

Will they be proposing a completely new building that we've never seen or heard of before OR are they going to be taking up office space in a proposal that we're already familiar with? (e.g. the Republic, 6XG, etc)

The answer to this question will determine the excitement level to this impending announcement.

I have no idea.....i wish i knew honestly. I'll update as I know more.

I'm just excited to add more jobs......as an 80's rural-recession era kid.....to me, jobs are everything. From what I understand, this will add a significant number of additional previously-unannounced jobs. That's all I can share for now....also.....it's just a rumor. I can't stand behind it yet.

My best guess is that, if the rumor is true, it could easily soak up what's in our dev pipeline for commercial....like all of it.

Hmm.. You're most likely talking about a tech company. Right?

I'm now wondering if Amazon will decide to do a second HQ2 location after all and just use ATX en lieu of NYC. I can't think of another potential company making an announcement that "BIG".

Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs Jobs
 

I've started this thread with permission of the mods to keep track of announced jobs headed to Austin in the urban core, metro and combined.

Just a simple:

announcement date, employer name, #of expected new hires, date of hiring completion, link (proof)


I believe employment numbers are the #1 indicator of a healthy market which in turn translates to more skyscapers (the reason we all check this site...incessantly). I can look to the "announced" buildings with a bit more clarity if I have an idea of how many more jobs we still have to fill based on the announced numbers of 1-5 years ago.

I doubt that it's Amazon. Nashville seems to be picking up steam as a potential 2nd HQ2 (aka HQ3.)

Salesforce?

W

I'd say Salesforce, or whatever Amazon has been planning since they announced the 5k-job expansion for Austin after HQ2 went to DC.

Did they really? I thought it was Nashville that was getting the 5k jobs from Amazon?

I like the sound of jobs and another corporate tower :)

Nashville got 5k to go along with the initial announcement of DC and NYC as the HQ2 winners. Amazon clearly saw something in Nashville, but it is not a well known tech hot spot. If Amazon were to decide to revive the idea of a second HQ2 location, I highly doubt Nashville would get the nod.

After the HQ2 rat race, they've been announcing jobs in Austin and elsewhere, but nothing along the lines of 5k that I'm aware of.

I know who it is...
 

I know it's Delta and they're gonna focus...no wait wrong forum...sorry:runaway:

Nothing concrete announced yet, but it has been heavily rumoured around town in Nashville that Amazon is going to add, at the very least, another 5k jobs to the city on top of the initial 5k that was announced. Their highrise campus is under construction as we speak, so we will probably know soon enough whether or not that is indeed the case if they start adding significant square footage to the buildings. We will see!

i

Okay time to place bets people!


I throw down a dollar that Delta will move its Corporate Headquarters from Atlanta to Austin!!!

::
(Slams above said dollar on table and looks around)::

:rolleyes::shhh:

Any takers.....?


NOT

I think the Pope is opening up Vatican2 on the statesman site.

Salesforce 100%. They’re hiring a lot right now, and they have some very well-known towers already.

m

According to the article BBVA is only moving its Austin area employees to the new building(s). It's not a corporate HQ move or even a U.S. HQ move.

Good lord that article was so poorly written I felt like I was having stroke reading it.

Another rumor that Disney is buying up land? ;)

I swear, it's like that thing was written by algorithm. It's not even like it's English-as-a-second-language stuff. Totally blogging by madlib.

BBVA had an actual announcement on its corporate page back in December. It's a bit clearer. SPOILER: the tower is mostly residential, with about 120k sq ft of office.

https://www.bbva.com/en/bbva-usa-tak...wntown-austin/

It appears the article was google translated from this one:

https://www.eleconomista.es/empresas...uira-otra.html

oooooh we should have a rumor thread.

1. yes i know it will be 90% bs and incorrect

but some of us have legitimate inside info and would happily leak "hints"


for instance, did you know there is an district/area/planned MUD in Austin we all know that is going to be rebranded under a new name this quarter? We will have to change the name of the thread!

Do tell more...are they looking to build a theme park or is it for a back-office use?

I’ve heard this rumor for years.....San Marcos was always mentioned, it would be a theme park.

Every city has heard this rumor.

May or may not be related but it's a big question who will be the real owner of Project Catalyst and its 97 acres now zoned for 160 foot buildings.

If we're talking a true mega expansion, this is already zoned for 4 million square feet of office space or 20,000 jobs. Such as things go, there's always opportunity a few years later to push for more density and height.

I shared that BBVA link because there was something interesting in it. In the article BBVA claimed that over half their revenue and business comes from Texas.

I know they're currently based in Birmingham but keep those pinups ready because BBVA seems like the type of company that could eventually relocate their HQ there. But I guess even if they do, it'll likely go to DFW. We all know how much TX governor Abbott cradles DFW in his arms when he's pitching TX to out of state companies.

I found this little nug when I was noodling around on their wikipedia page:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BBVA_USA

They've actually got a lot of touch in Austin, turns out. Not an entirely unnatural fit if they wanted to centralize ops in TX.

Accenture just leased leased 22k sqft downtown...no exact employment numbers given for the new office....but typically you can assume 200 sqft per person....so something like 100+ "new" jobs for downtown.

https://www.bizjournals.com/austin/n...-historic.html

Is this a tease that someone Accenture serves in a big way is coming here?

Don't think so. As a former ACN employee, I can tell you the size of the office is always WAY less than the # of employees they have in a city since it's a hotelling style office (you're only in the ACN office MAYBE A day a week). The biggest Austin ACN employee likely ever was Steve Rohleder (former COO), who is retired and founded his own thing now. New CEO Julie Sweet I believe is in NYC. Their biggest ops in Austin relate to consulting services provided to the State government.

Ha! This is how it always starts. :D

Don't take this the wrong way but I don't see how this kind of speculation is helpful or useful.

You say you know more, but can't say. So what are we supposed to do here? What's the point of this thread?

Austin is growing fast enough that major employers are bound to invest in it. So how does your "tip" move the needle in any way?

I second this. It’s just annoying more than anything.

See post #5 in the thread. That was urbancore's intent for this thread. His speculative post about a big jobs announcement was originally posted in the Update thread. But then came a shit ton of other posts related to that one which were more appropriate for this this thread than the Update thread. So I moved them here.

EDIT: I changed the thread title hoping it helps us get back on track.

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.

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.

s

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.

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. :cheers:

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.