NewsTalk Texas

GALVESTON - Royal Caribbean cruise line's Navigator of the Seas will launch year-round cruises from the island next year, extending its winter and spring sailing.

The 3,114-passenger cruise ship is set to undergo extensive renovations in February 2014, adding a surf simulator and dining venues.

Galveston's economy took a hit when Carnival officials announced that the Carnival Triumph would be out until mid-June.

Port officials are planning $8 million to $10 million in improvements at the terminal that will serve the Navigator of the Seas. In 2001, the Port of Galveston completed $12 million in improvements to a second terminal for Carnival Cruise Lines.

The last Royal Caribbean cruise ship to sail year-round out of Galveston was the Rhapsody of the Seas, based on the island from November 2001 to September 2007.

Read more at the Beaumont Enterprise.

Listen to Podcast 172 for this story...and more!

BEAUMONT - Victory Medical Center, a 75,000-sf facility located at 6025 Metropolitan Dr., is open. The facility contains an eight-bed care center that includes four operating rooms and medical offices.

The facility offers first-class service and dedicated one-on-one nursing. The hospital will provide neurological and spinal surgeries as well as create 100 new jobs.

An initial investment of between $17 million and $18 million was made to construct the facility.

Read more at the Beaumont Enterprise.

Listen to Podcast 170 for this story...and more!

PORT ARTHUR - The City of Port Arthur saw its unemployment rate drop to 14.2 percent in March — down almost an entire percentage point from 14.9 percent in February, and 1.5 percent from 15.7 percent in March 2012.

Robert Foster, labor market analyst at Texas Workforce Solutions, said these numbers were due in part to a smaller labor force. There were 19,865 people employed in March, 13 more than the 19,852 in February.

However, the total number of residents in Port Arthur who are employed has dropped from 20,062 in March 2012.

Unemployment in the Beaumont-Port Arthur metropolitan area has fallen from 9.9 percent in February to 9.7 percent in March — exactly where it was this time last year.

Jefferson County saw 73 people join its workforce in the month of March. Employment numbers rose from 107,690 in February to 107,763. In March, 10 percent of the county’s population was unemployed, as opposed to 10.2 percent in February and 10.4 percent in March 2012. The Jefferson County labor force shrank from 119,933 in February to 119,749 in March — down from 121,428 in March 2012.

“There is a lot of construction and a lot of expansions going on in the plants that will help tremendously,” according to Foster

Read More at the Port Arthur News.

NEDERLAND - Retail development of frontage property at Jack Brooks Regional Airport is one step closer to fruition. Jefferson County Commissioners approved a letter of intent to enter a ground lease from Accelerated Development for the development of 68 acres of land.

The conceptual plan calls for approximately 450,000 sf of retail development and six to eight restaurants, according to Pat Sauer, principal and director of development of the company.

Accelerated Developments has identified a list of candidates and has begun discussions with retailers. If all goes as planned construction could start by the end of 2014.

Read more at the Port Arthur News.

PORT ARTHUR - Bechtel Corp., the major contractor for the Cheniere Energy Inc. liquefied natural gas facility expansion project in Sabine Pass, has leased an office downtown to recruit and train workers.

The downtown location was as close to the project site as the company could get without locating in Louisiana.

Bechtel could hire anywhere from 300 to 500 people throughout the project, according to Laura Childress, a member of Port Arthur Downtown Renewal Association.

Becon, a Bechtel subsidiary, will operate the recruitment and training office as Cheniere continues to expand its LNG facility. The company signed a lease with the Digital Workforce Academy Golden Triangle Empowerment Center for a 9,200-sf office on Procter St.

The Port Arthur City Council approved the purchase of the historic Port Arthur Savings and Loan Building at 501 Procter St., which will eventually be home to the Port Arthur Economic Development Corporation once the building has been renovated.

Read more at the Port Arthur News.

PORT ARTHUR - TJ Maxx is opening May 5 in a 24,500-sf space inside Central Mall, where Luby’s and Gap once were.

It will be one of nearly 1,000 TJ Maxx stores across the country.

Read more at the Beaumont Enterprise.

BEAUMONT - Coastal Caverns Inc., a subsidiary of Vitol Inc., will join with a Japanese company, Itochu Corp., to spend $500 million to develop storage caverns in the Spindletop salt dome.

The project would be able to process up to 100,000 barrels per day of propane and butane with exporting capability of up to 3 million tons per year.

The company said the site easily could expand for a second phase to allow for more than 6 million tons per year. The site also has permits for up to 30 million barrels of storage capacity.

The company said in a statement that construction would employ about 100 people and create about 30 permanent jobs on expected completion in late 2014.

Read more at the Beaumont Enterprise.

PORT ARTHUR - By the end of summer 2013, 100 trucks will be delivering wooden pellets to the Port of Port Arthur every 24 hours as part of a 25-year contract with German Pellets to export the pellets to Europe, said Floyd Gaspard, executive port director.

German Pellets is the largest manufacturer of wooden pellets in Europe and recently started construction on a pellet production facility in Woodville, which is about 75 miles north of the port.

The company has also started construction on a storage and loading facility at the port. German Pellets should finish building the five, 85-foot tall pellet silos and accompanying enclosed conveyor belt by the end of the summer.

The contract with German Pellets has led to a series of construction jobs at the port and in Woodville.

Truck drivers, longshoremen, tugboat operators, shipping agents and silo and conveyor belt operators would all be needed for the pellet project. Over a six-month period anywhere from 25 to 50 full-time construction jobs would be filled at the port.

Read more at the Port Arthur News.

NEDERLAND, JEFFERSON COUNTY - Secondary markets in Texas are becoming positive targets for multifamily property investors, which was recently proved by the closing of two different properties in separate transactions.

The 128-unit Avenue, located at 2900 Nederland Ave., sold for between $10 million and $11 million to Avenue Apartment Investors LLC, with Nederland Avenue Apartments Ltd being the seller.

The complex — which is 94 percent occupied — has 116,640 sf of net rentable space and has an average rent of $1.11 per sf, according to Cushman & Wakefield.

In Corpus Christi, the 169-unit Bay Vista Apartments, located at 522 Hancock Ave. traded at a price range between $16 million and $18 million. It was sold by Bay Vista Apartments I LP to Sage Properties Corp.

Both assets were stable from a leasing standpoint and are of Class A quality, having been constructed within the last five years.

Read more at Globe St.

BEAUMONT - Spring 2013 enrollment numbers for Lamar University have rolled in at 13,010 students to date. Compared to last spring, the university has seen an increase of .5 percent in head count and 2.7 percent increase in credit hours, according to Kevin Smith with the university.

Stricter freshman admission requirements could have set back the university, but instead Lamar saw an increase of total credit hours to 141,900 compared to spring 2012's numbers of 138,225.

The College of Engineering saw a drastic increase in numbers, which Smith states was due to new recruiting initiatives and scholarships.

Along with undergraduate enrollment on a spike, Lamar has a record number of students — 403 — pursuing a doctoral degree.

Read more at the Beaumont Enterprise.

BEAUMONT - The NRP Group had announced the addition of Azure Pointe, an affordable multifamily housing community that is currently under construction, to its portfolio. Azure Pointe will provide 140 one-, two-, three- and four-bedroom apartments and townhouses. The community is located at 6355 Chinn Ln.

The units will range in size from 712 sf to 1,561 sf. The complex will consist of nine buildings, according to the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs.

Construction of the property began in fall 2012 and units will become available in summer 2013. The project’s financing totaled $18,807,603, according to the Beaumont Housing Authority.

Each apartment features a fully-equipped kitchen, 9’ ceilings, covered balconies or patios and more, while the community offers residents a fitness center, swimming pool, playground and clubhouse.

The community is just five miles from I-10, ten miles from Beaumont Municipal Airport and Ford Park Event Center, less than three miles from Parkdale Mall and two miles from grocery and other shopping.

Read more at the Beaumont Enterprise.

BEAUMONT - Multifamily statistics for the Beaumont area have been released by San Antonio-based Apartment MarketData Research.

The area’s apartments remained relatively affordable in the three months ending December 2012, as Beaumont’s units averaged $0.809 per sf, compared to an average of $0.912 for all of Texas’ metro areas.

Beaumont’s occupancy in units built since 2000 outpaced the Texas metro average, with a 97.1 percent occupancy rate in the area, compared to 96.8 percent for the Texas metro average.

*Trailing three months

For other Texas areas, see Apartment MarketData Research.

Source: Apartment MarketData Research

BEAUMONT - U.S. News & World Report ranked Lamar University’s online graduate nursing program as second in the nation out of 101 programs evaluated.

The ranking is based on four criteria: faculty credentials and training, student services and technology, student engagement, and admissions selectivity

The top score was 75.0 and Lamar scored 74.5, according to Brenda Nichols, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Of the four major areas considered in these rankings, Lamar scored highest in Faculty Credentials and Training.

Below are the Texas schools that were ranked by U.S. News & World Report.

Read more at The Examiner.

PORT ARTHUR - By the time the new year is rung in again, oil tankers will be able to nuzzle up next to Pleasure Island and unload their cargo no matter the hour of the day.

The marine terminal will receive crude tankers of up to Suezmax class, and will be able to operate without the daylight restrictions imposed on other terminals in the upper Sabine-Neches waterway.

Valero Terminaling and Distribution Co. and TGS Development have formed a joint venture to develop a crude oil terminal on Pleasure Island by the end of 2013.

The joint venture, called PI Dock Facilities LLC, is a $75 million investment, said Terry Doyle, chairman of the Pleasure Island Commission. The new terminal would not only bring jobs to the Port Arthur area but tax revenue, as well.

Crude unloaded at the terminal will be able to reach the Valero Port Arthur Refinery through a new 36-inch pipeline. That pipeline could connect to the other area refineries and the terminal location has enough space — 100 acres — for other similar developments.

Meanwhile, the $10 million Pleasure Island Marina is expected to be complete by the end of January or early February 2013. The new marina will be able to house 300 boats.

Read more at the Port Arthur News.

Listen to Podcast 157 for this story...and more! 

PORT ARTHUR - The Port Arthur Economic Development Corporation (EDC) has made plans to retrofit the old Port Arthur Savings Building at 501 Proctor St. within the next year. It will cost the EDC more than $4 million to bring the building up to code and make it inhabitable

By the middle of 2014, the EDC will have moved into the rehabilitated building, according to Floyd Batiste, CEO of the EDC. The move from 39th St. to Procter St. would be in an effort to spur development downtown, as recommended by the Mercer Report.

The EDC purchased the property at 501 Procter St. from Southland Overseas Investment Inc. for $160,000 in 2010.

Read more at the Port Arthur News.

PORT ARTHUR - Construction is planned to start in spring 2013 on a 90-room Marriott extended stay hotel on Memorial Blvd. It is expected to be complete in early 2014.

Read more at the Beaumont Enterprise.

SILSBEE, HARDIN COUNTY - Work is underway on the 10,000-sf Spanish Trail Assisted Living of Silsbee, located at 775 US 96 South. The assisted-living facility is planned to open summer 2013 and will be equipped to serve 16 senior residents.

Read more at the Beaumont Enterprise.

NEDERLAND - Howell’s Furniture Co. will receive a $250,000 incentive from the Nederland Economic Development Corporation to locate a store on FM 365.

The new site will be approximately 30,000 sf and will be located at one end of the Ritter at Home building, according to Tom Schwaab, president of Howell’s.

An approximate 90-day construction period is expected as well as another 90 days to stock the store with merchandise. Officials plan to duplicate the entrance at Ritters and add windows and a display area.

Howell’s plans to employ 15 to 18 people with the possibility of adding staff in the future.

Read more at the Port Arthur News.

ORANGE COUNTY - October 2012 sales tax receipts are up across Orange County by 2.83 percent compared to October 2011. Orange County is 1.51 percent ahead of 2011 sales tax figures for the year.

Leading the way for the month was Rose City, which is seeing a 13 percent increase from what the city received a year ago. The city is now 3.33 percent ahead for the year.

The city with the biggest gain for the year-to-date is Vidor, which is 6.60 percent ahead of 2011 figures. This month’s payment is 4.40 percent ahead of last year.

Bridge City received a payment of $131,000 for October, an increase of approximately $2,000 or 1.50 percent. The City of Bridge City is 4.69 percent ahead of 2011 figures.

The City of Orange showed a strong gain with a payment of $372,274.32 for October, which is a 5.38 percent increase over the same time last year.

For cities and counties, see the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts.

Read more at the Orange Leader.

BEAUMONT - U-Haul Company of South Houston has purchased an existing self-storage facility located at 7910 and 8161 Eastex Fwy. The facility features five single-story self-storage buildings offering more than 425 storage rooms, with more than 40,250 sf of net rentable self-storage.

The U-Haul Moving and Storage of Eastex Freeway features climate-controlled self-storage as well as outdoor drive-up, and boat and RV storage. The facility also will feature U-Box pods for moving and self-storage.

Read more at the Sacramento Bee.