NewsTalk Texas

KILLEEN - One of Killeen’s busiest retail corridors — between Trimmier Rd. and W.S. Young Dr. on Lowes Blvd. — is running out of space, which may drive corporate retailers to new parts of the city to open up shop.

The busy corner of Trimmier Rd. and US Highway 190 — across the street from Walgreens — will soon see a CVS pharmacy, now under construction. The 13,000-sf retail pharmacy plans to open in September.

John Crutchfield, president of the Greater Killeen Chamber of Commerce, said CVS spent around $4 million for its new store and knocked down other businesses, including a Midas and a Baymont Inn and Suites hotel.

Mike DeAngelias, spokesman for CVS, said the high visibility and traffic at the location will make the CVS profitable in spite of the proximity to competitors.

“It’s not uncommon for the competing stores to open up on opposite corners of an intersection,” DeAngelias said. “The fact that we’re interested in similar attributes — easy access, high visibility — makes that a common occurrence.”

After years of maximizing occupancy of the limited US Hwy. 190 real estate, prices for lots on the major highway into Fort Hood have increased. “We’re starting to see development along SH 195, because of the traffic and the density along Lowes Blvd.,” Crutchfield said.

“Sooner or later somebody is going to do a development on SH 195, and when that happens, you’re going to see the floodgates open up down there,” Crutchfield said.

Read more at the Killeen Daily Herald.

KILLEEN - Killeen has added more than 39 residential subdivisions in the last five years, with new developments continually in the planning and construction stages.

Those subdivisions include a wide range of residential lots. They also sometimes include more than one phase of a neighborhood — adding more than 100 homes to the city with each new section.

Similar situations are seen in Harker Heights and Copperas Cove, though the scope of construction is smaller.

“Most of the activity we are seeing now with the platting of subdivisions is robust, and a lot of it is the developers trying to fill the need from the larger home builders,” said Tony McIlwain, a Killeen city planner.

Much like other markets, homebuyers are driving the creation of residential subdivisions in Central Texas cities, said Harker Heights City Manager Steve Carpenter.

Harker Heights has experienced between 150 and 250 homes constructed per year, and Copperas Cove has averaged about the same, while Killeen adds about 1,100 new homes a year.

“One thing the communities here in Central Texas have done is not curtail growth,” McIlwain said. “We have let the market dictate the market.”

Fort Hood’s soldier population has played a factor in the construction of several subdivisions, but recently the cities have started to diversify the workforce.

Seton Medical Center Harker Heights and Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center are bringing more than just soldiers to the area.

Commercial projects including Sam’s Club in Harker Heights and the Five Hills shopping center in Copperas Cove bring more retail job growth.

Read more at the Killeen Daily Herald.

TEMPLE - The Temple Area Builders Association has released new home starts for April.

Read more at TAHB.

HARKER HEIGHTS - The city is gearing up for a new YMCA gym in Purser Family Park. The Armed Services YMCA (ASYMCA) is expected to serve more than 15,000 veterans and civilians.

The new ASYMCA will have more than simple workout equipment. It will also offer post-outpatient soldier rehabilitation programs, military family counseling, family meet-ups, holistic wellness programs and nutrition classes.

Seton Medical Center Harker Heights CEO Matt Maxfield presented ASYMCA with a $2 million check for the construction of the two-story 45,000-sf workout and rehabilitation facility.

The project has raised half of its $9.3 million development goal. ASYMCA board chairman Larry Linder said that when the 80 percent goal is reached, construction will begin.

Board member Donna Connell said an agreement with Seton called for breaking ground within the next one-and-a-half years, but the project overview stated that building could start by December. The facility will take about a year to finish.

Along with offering soldier rehabilitation programs for lost limbs, severe burns, heart issues and other war injuries, the center will have a $1.5 million warm water therapy pool with a treadmill on the bottom, Davis said.

ASYMCA started in 1966 in Killeen to provide programs and support for soldiers and their families. The organization offers before- and after-school programs at 39 schools from Lampasas to Belton. Family-oriented YMCA facilities in Copperas Cove and Heights will stay open after the new facility is built.

The idea for the new complex crystallized in 2009, when the city gave the parkland to ASYMCA, said Tony Mino, executive director of ASYMCA Killeen.

While the ASYMCA hasn’t gotten a building permit, Linder said he is optimistic that partnering with the city will help the project move forward.

Read more at the Harker Heights Herald.

TEMPLE - The Salvation Army McLane Center of Hope has broken ground on its new homeless shelter. The 22,000-sf building will be located in Temple on the corner of West Ave. G and 9th St, providing emergency shelter, food and rehabilitation.

Salvation Army services including life skills training and job skill training will also be offered.

This facility will be the first Bell County homeless shelter, the only one found between Waco and Austin, and will accommodate up to 100 at a time.

The facility will also provide the underprivileged within the community with clothing, food, counseling, utility and rent assistance and medical evaluations.

There are 5,000 facilities like the Center of Hope in existence across the U.S. The facilities served more than 30 million people last year.

Temple's McLane family pledged a gift of $1 million to the project, which significantly helped the Salvation Army come closer to their $4.9 million goal.

Read more at The Belton Journal.

FORT HOOD - Construction of the new 947,000-sf Carl R. Darnall Army Medical Center is about 25 percent complete as of May 2013. The topping out event signifies completion of the highest elevation point of construction.

The new facility will be about 60 percent larger than the existing 45-year-old medical center. The Army is expected to be able to occupy the hospital in summer 2014, with operations starting one year later.

The project sits on a 72-acre site and will include a six-story hospital tower, two two-story outpatient clinics, one three-story outpatient specialty clinic, ambulance garage, logistics building, central utility plant and three parking structures.

Darnall serves roughly 45,000 active duty personnel and nearly 125,000 military family members and retirees within a 40-mile radius.

A $540 million contract to design and build the new facility was awarded in September 2010 to Balfour Beatty-McCarthy Joint Venture of Dallas.The new facility addresses Fort Hood’s most pressing medical needs, which include the areas of behavioral health, specialty clinics and pediatric primary care.

About 66,000 sf of the new center is dedicated to behavioral health services. This area will include an outpatient component, a Resilience and Restoration Center, Department of Social Work, and Hospital and Administrative Psychiatry.

The fourth floor of the new medical center will be devoted to women’s services. It will include nine labor-delivery-recovery rooms, two C-section units, a 12-bed neonatal intensive care unit and a 28-bed mother baby unit.

Read more at Business Wire and the Fort Hood Herald.

HARKER HEIGHTS - Veterans are encouraged to apply at the new 136,000-sf Sam’s Club at the corner of W. Central Texas Expy. and Memory Ln. Sam’s Club has started hiring 175 employees.

Hiring has started. Available positions include cashiers, overnight stockers, sales associates and management.

The hiring center is open from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily at 3400 E. Central Texas Expressway, Suite 101, Killeen.

Walmart and Sam’s Club have pledged to hire 100,000 veterans in the next five years and have committed to offer a job to any honorably discharged veteran in his or her first 12 months off active duty

Estimated construction value is $7.5 million, according to state filings. The membership-only retail wholesale club is tentatively set to open in late fall 2013.

Read more at the Temple Daily Telegram and the Killeen Daily Herald.

Listen to Podcast 173 for this story...and more!

HARKER HEIGHTS - Verna Lee Townhomes are the newest addition to the Harker Heights housing market.

Flintrock Custom Homes has developed four of 16 planned homes adjacent to Verna Lee Blvd. and Ashwood St. Builders will construct the next four after selling the existing ones. Prices for the two-story, 1,570-sf homes range from $128,500 to $138,000.

The Verna Lee Townhouses are the first townhomes to be built in the city in more than 20 years.

Read more at the Killeen Daily Herald.

ROCKDALE, MILAM COUNTY - The Rockdale City Council approved a $2.39 million bid to build a half-million-gallon water tower. Construction will start in 30 to 45 days and is expected to be completed in 60 days.

The proposed tower will be situated near Allday St. See the Water Tower Plans.

Read more at the Temple Daily Telegram.

TEMPLE - Construction has begun on the $26.2 million North Belton Middle School. The school will be 153,000 sf and have a 900-student capacity, according to Barry Nebhut with SHW Group.

It will be built on 30 acres just north of Tarver Elementary. Westfield Blvd. will come through to link the school, according to Susan Kincannon, Belton Independent School District’s superintendent.

The school will have 31 regular classrooms, nine science labs and 11 specialty classrooms for fine arts.

Read more at the Temple Daily Telegram and KWTX.

TEMPLE - The Temple Economic Development Corporation and the City of Temple announced that Buc-ee’s will build the company’s thirtieth travel center in Texas on a 17.5-acre tract on NW Loop 363 in north Temple. The over 60,000-sf travel center will be the first Buc-ee’s located north of Austin.

Buc-ee's will make an approximately $16 million capital investment in the project. The company will hire approximately 150 full-time employees at a starting salary of $11.50 per hour, according to Beaver Aplin, Buc-ee’s founder and CEO. It typically takes about one year to complete such projects.

The Temple EDC and the City of Temple both approved incentive agreements for Buc-ee’s on April 18.

Source: Temple Economic Development Corporation

Listen to Podcast 169 for this story...and more!

HARKER HEIGHTS - The City of Harker Heights released its most recent list of top employers. The top ten employers were ranked by the number of employees as of December 2012.

Source: City of Harker Heights

For a more complete list, visit the employment category in Market Data Sources.

TEMPLE - Five new projects netted $776 million in new value for the area economy last year, according to Lee Peterson, the president of the Temple Economic Development Corp.

These projects included

• Panda Energy’s $758 million power plant
• Johnson Brothers Ford-Lincoln’s new facility
• Sparetime Fun Center
• investments by Tin Knockers Sheet Metal and Gateway Center — which will be home to the new Cinemark Theaters.

More than 53 percent of Temple businesses plan expansions in the next three years. Over 73 percent expect to grow in Temple. Forty-one percent of Temple companies consider their primary market to be global, Peterson said.

Johnson Brothers’ owner Harry Adams and General Manager Kenny McCarty accepted the award for Expansion Project of the Year, which honored the dealership for its new $5.5 million facility and $500,000 in new equipment.

Johnson Brothers’ has plans to hire 15 more employees and expects to generate more than $3 million in sales taxes this year, according to Charley Ayres with the Temple EDC.

Read more at the Temple Daily Telegram. On the fun side, see Buc-ee's coming to Temple.

BELTON - Faculty shortages at nursing schools across the country are limiting student capacity as the need for professional registered nurses continues.

The University of Mary Hardin-Baylor (UMHB) is addressing the issue with its addition of a Leadership in Nursing Education track in its doctorate of education degree program.

It is expected that the number of employed nurses will grow from 2.74 million in 2010 to 3.45 million in 2020, an increase of 712,000 or 26 percent.

UMHB’s doctorate of education degree program now offers two separate tracks of study for students pursuing the doctoral degree — a track for educators focused on pre-K through grade 12 education, and a track for higher-education professionals.

The addition of a third track in Leadership in Nursing Education will open the degree program up to nursing educators who wish to earn a terminal degree in their field of study.

During the first year of study in the doctorate program, all students take classes in research, statistics and leadership; in the second year, group members move into a specialized set of courses geared toward the track they have chosen.

A survey of vacant faculty positions released by the American Association of College Nursing in 2012 reported a total of 1,181 faculty vacancies across the U.S., with most of the vacancies being positions that required or preferred a doctoral degree.

Read more at the Temple Daily Telegram.

BELTON - An arrangement between the City of Belton and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) has freed more than 90 acres of land in which to expand the city’s wastewater treatment plant and attract new commercial and heavy industrial businesses.

The 94 acres of the Rockwool Superfund site along FM 93 and Taylors Valley Rd. was acquired at no cost to the city in two tax sale auctions after the Environmental Protection Agency and TCEQ spent more than $18 million cleaning and containing waste caused by a former household insulation plant, Rockwool Industries, which closed in the mid-1980s. The EPA deemed the area a Superfund site in the late 1990s.

The city has been working for a release on liens of the property, which Belton and TCEQ recently successfully concluded after 18 months of negotiation, said Sam Listi, the city manager.

The city paid $50,000 to TCEQ for the release and will provide landscaping and general maintenance of the property while TCEQ agreed to continue monitoring both water quality at on-site wells and a containment cell housing the waste material.

The property has been deemed suitable for nonresidential use, and is located in an ideal area near I-35 and US 190.

The land not only provides 70-plus acres of new commercial and heavy industrial zoning, but 16 acres for the planned expansion of the Temple-Belton wastewater treatment plant, which has already reached capacity thresholds triggering state-mandated planning for an expansion. The plant serves all of Belton and about 75 percent of Temple.

Read more at the Temple Daily Telegram.

BELL COUNTY - Employment levels improved but average weekly pay dropped in Bell County in 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Bell County employment rose 1.7 percent, while average weekly wages decreased 0.9 percent in July-September 2012 compared to the same time in 2011.

Despite the drop, Bell County was 108th among the 328 largest U.S. counties for pay improvement, up from 309 of 322 last year.

Weekly wages in Bell County averaged $749, compared to a high of $1,154 in Houston’s Harris County. Cameron County on the Texas border averaged $580, the lowest among large counties.

Other area counties’ wage averages were: McLennan, $735; Coryell, $650; Falls, $583; and Lampasas, $576.

For employment growth, Bell was 123rd of the 328 largest U.S. counties in September 2012, down from 109th last year. Local job growth was slightly better than the U.S. average 1.6 percent, but a full point below the state’s 2.7 percent.

Read more at the Temple Daily Telegram.

HARKER HEIGHTS - Harker Heights City Council agreed to enter into an economic development agreement with developer Chris Doose of Austin to build a 105-lot subdivision behind H-E-B between Indian Trail and Lookout Ridge.

Plans for the development, dubbed The East Rim in the Heights, include 50 townhomes and 50 garden homes on 3,000- to 5,000-sf lots. About 20 townhome lofts will also be available for lease, according to Doose.

The city favored Doose’s proposal because of the growth the $15 million project will bring to the community, according to Steve Carpenter, the city manager.

Doose expects to have a concept plan and plat completed this summer, with construction starting in the fall.

Read more at the Killeen Daily Herald.

TEMPLE - Panda Power has secured $372 million to build a second natural gas-fueled power plant that will contribute to a $3.2 billion boost in the Temple area economy over the next decade.

The 758-megawatt combined-cycle plant will be adjacent to a similar facility under construction off Lorraine Dr. in Synergy Industrial Park in southeast Temple.

The plants will produce enough power to supply 1.5 million homes in Central and North Texas when complete by mid-2015. The first phase should be online by summer 2014, Panda spokesman Bill Pentak said.

Each plant will contribute $1.6 billion to the area — primarily due to an enlarged tax base — during the first ten years of operation, according to a study by Impact Data Source of Austin.

Panda Power Funds has issued $372 million of secured debt on Temple II and $340 million on the project’s first phase, according to Standard & Poor’s Rating Service.

Each power plant will create 700 to 800 jobs at peak construction. Thirty-five employees will operate the facilities, and 90 jobs will be created within the community to support the plants, according to the company.

They also will be among the cleanest power plants in the U.S., with advanced emissions-control technology that will contain carbon monoxide emission to less than ten parts-per-million and nitrogen oxide to less than two parts-per-million,

All area taxing entities have granted the project ten-year, 50 percent tax abatements. The company has a similar 758-megawatt plant under construction in Sherman.

Read more at the Temple Daily Telegram.

TEMPLE - The $6 million, 40,000-sf Spare Time Fun Center has opened its doors at 5434 205 Loop. The facility boasts 24 bowling lanes — eight of them in a semi-private, adult setting — a two-story laser tag arena, laser maze, arcade games and a full-service bar and grill.

A meeting facility with podium and smart TVs can seat up to 200 people, or may be broken into seven private birthday party rooms.

About 75 employees have been hired to run the center, according to Daniel Mueller, the general manager. The Temple city council has approved a five-year, 100 percent tax abatement for the project, which is estimated to be worth $56,790. The agreement requires Spare Time to hire at least 75 people.

Read more at the Temple Daily Telegram.

BELTON - Construction is set to begin on the $10.43 million River Springs at Barge Ranch apartment complex in north Belton.

The upscale, 232-unit community will be off SH 317 near the River Fair retail and entertainment area, said Mike Beevers, who represents developer Bill Barge of Barge Properties. The project was permitted March 26 and awaits loan closure.

Construction is expected in the next 60 days and should be completed in June 2014. The first residents could move in as soon as nine months after work starts.

The high-end community is expected to appeal to a broad range of residents including young professionals, college students, young couples, families and empty nesters, he said.

The complex will include six residential buildings of up to three floors, and will offer a pool, meeting room, an exercise facility and a walking trail. The second phase will incorporate an additional exercise room and a children’s splash pad, Beevers said.

Residential buildings will offer one-, two- or three-bedroom units. Each building will be from about 24,000 sf to nearly 40,000 sf, according to Belton permits.

The 16-acre property will be accessible from SH 317, but Barge Properties will build a road during the second phase that will provide an additional outlet to River Fair Blvd., said Erin Newcomer, Belton planning director.

BBL Builders of Dallas — which built the $11.25 million Encore at Marlandwood in 2012 and Pecan Pointe in 2007 — will construct the complex at 3301 N. Main St. in two phases.

Read more at the Temple Daily Telegram.