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Posted Feb 2, 2024, 5:12 PM
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FYHA
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Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Houston - Wichita, KS
Posts: 3,213
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Good article from Houston Business Journal regarding developments in the Bay Area as of late...
https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/...-bay-area.html
Quote:
NO LONGER DRIVE-THROUGH COUNTRY
The Bay Area has long been ignored, but once Great Wolf Resorts took notice, everyone else followed suit.
By Florian Martin – Reporter, Houston Business Journal
Feb 2, 2024
Even in Houston, when people talk about the Bay Area, the first place that may come to mind is San Francisco.
Sure, that may be the more famous bay, but the Galveston Bay Area has quite a few things going for it, too.
Although it has long been the home of NASA’s Johnson Space Center, the Kemah Boardwalk and Baybrook Mall, Interstate 45 south of Beltway 8 has mostly been drive-through country for visitors and commuters to Galveston or downtown Houston.
But that is changing.
A growing number of major projects have the potential to turn some of the bedroom communities along I-45, the Gulf Freeway, into destinations in their own right.
Unlike other growth areas in Greater Houston – such as Katy, Cypress or Montgomery County – the Bay Area has been well developed for many years, and its growth is restricted by the bodies of water surrounding it.
However, there are many smaller infill opportunities sprinkled throughout the corridor, and developers have been getting busy, well, filling them in.
Take Baybrook East, on the east side of I-45 at El Dorado Boulevard, by Florida-based Regency Centers (NYSE: REG) and CDC Houston Inc., a subsidiary of New York-based Coventry Development Corp. The 23-acre retail center’s first phase opened in December 2021 with a new H-E-B. The second phase is halfway completed and open, including a 30,000-square-foot retail complex that houses Parry’s Pizzeria & Taphouse, Dave’s Hot Chicken, a barbershop, liquor store and nail salon. In-N-Out Burger opened last fall on an outparcel, and The Taco Stand is currently under construction on another.
Others have been developing shopping centers on small tracts along I-45, including Jericho, New York-based Kimco Realty Corp.’s (NYSE: KIM) Shops at Baybrook at Bay Area Boulevard, which will house a Shake Shack and Velvet Taco.
In League City, New York City-based WB Property Group, in partnership with Atticus Real Estate, has said it will build the 70-acre mixed-use development Riverview at Clear Creek, just east of I-45 and north of FM 696. It would include 30,000 square feet of restaurant and retail space as well as public amenities such as a boardwalk, an amphitheater, a boutique hotel, a small marina, fishing deck, trails, an outdoor gym and a picnic area. However, the future of that project is unclear, as League City has terminated a Chapter 380 developer agreement with WB. The developer did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Further south along the Gulf Freeway, several new mixed-use developments are planned in Dickinson, including Houston-based Reme Cos. and Bryan, Texas-based William Cole Cos.’ $100 million Water Street on 19.5 acres along the southbound side of the freeway at FM 517.
In La Marque, Galveston County developer Jerome Karam is redeveloping the former Gulf Greyhound Park into an 11,000-seat “Las Vegas-style” concert and event arena, with adjacent retail and restaurants as well as a possible hotel and apartments.
And Texas City will soon be home to one of the first Sports Illustrated Resorts in the United States. The resort will be adjacent to the semi-public lagoon in Land Tejas’ Lago Mar community.
Many of those new developments are coming on the heels of the announcement by Chicago-based Great Wolf Resorts that it has picked Webster for the second Great Wolf Lodge in Texas. The company expects the indoor water park and resort to open later this year east of I-45, just south of the NASA Bypass and adjacent to Topgolf.
Dan Seal, executive director of economic development at the Bay Area Houston Economic Partnership, credits Great Wolf for starting an avalanche of commercial development.
“A lot of these other developments are saying, ‘Hey, if Great Wolf Lodge is going there, then we need to be there because they do their homework,’” Seal said.
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