Beaumont's real estate engine is in overdrive

Source: The Beaumont Enterprise, TexasSept.迷你倉出租 06--The exodus of retail from Tuscany Park after Calvary Baptist Church bought the upscale, Mediterranean-style complex was only a short detour along Dowlen Road's drive toward more business."Dowlen Road is still the king," said Sheri Arnold, real estate broker of Coldwell Banker Commercial Arnold and Associates. "There's not a site available."A clever city planner and a resourceful Realtor might be able to carve something out, but maybe not with curbside convenience.The former Orange Savings Bank -- now First Financial Bank -- snapped up a spot with the address of 3515 Dowlen Road, squeezed between Barrington Avenue and just south of the new Victory Medical Center on the west side of Dowlen, across from Tuscany Park, which Calvary acquired in 2012.Stephen Lee, president and chief executive of the formerOrange Savings Bank, now part of First Financial, a Nasdaq-traded company, said construction will begin in mid-September with a groundbreaking on Sept. 16 and an aimed-for opening in the second quarter of 2014.It will be a 7,000-square feet red brick building with columns in front and a construction price of $3 million or more."We definitely see more commercial and industrial development," Lee said. "We see a lot of positive things going on -- not just in Beaumont, but throughout Southeast Texas."Real estate broker Charlie Foxworth said a developer was looking for a site to build a million-square-foot distribution warehouse -- like one of those places that sends out stock to big discount stores -- and the site under consideration was along Interstate 10 in Orange County."We didn't win, but we were considered," he said. "We're on somebody's list. We're on their radar. It's nothing we'd ever seen before. It's super cool."It's sort of like being nominated for an Academy Award, perhaps, but not winning. It's the honor of the thing."A lot of people's arrows are pointing to this area," Foxworth said.There is churn in the commercial market.For example, Art Richard used to be in a small engineering firm on Cardinal Drive. That firm was acquired by Matrix Engineering, which was acquired by CB&I.CB&I acquired the old Bethlehem Shipyard location on Brakes Bayou and the Neches River that later became Trinity Industries railcar plant.Then it became CB&I's Island Park fabricating yard while CB&I's engineers occupied several floors of Edison Plaza on Pine Street in downtown Beaumont.Then CB&I finished its large projects that were headquartered in Beaumont and pulled out, taking with it its blue neon sign from atop Edison Plaza that somewhat misrepresented whose building it was.Its pullout also left the former Matrix Engineering-then-CB&I offices on Cardinal Drive up for sale.Foxworth brokered the deal to help Richard reacquire the property where he began, expanding from his takeover of the former U.S. Postal Service Remote Encoding Center, which began as the Texas State Optical building, which is now 迷你倉he home of the Richard Design Group.Engineers are busy in Beaumont."This energy thing is real," Foxworth said.It's part of the rippling out of the wave of energy production from shale deposits across the country.In what seems like long-ago news, natural gas wells were drilled on Beaumont Municipal Airport property that yielded up more than $50 million in royalty payments to the city.Those wells were developed by Tulsa, Okla.-based Cimarex Energy Co., which had a field office in Sour Lake and now occupies a warehouse converted to offices on Eastex Freeway near Lawrence Drive, Arnold said.It's not just heavy industry that's flexing demand muscle, Arnold said."We're an under-served market," she said. "People are starting to do more."Chain restaurants that don't have a presence in the Beaumont area are making plans to set up shop. A short list includes Five Guys Burgers and BreWingz, a chicken wings place. Raising Cane's has space inside Parkdale Mall, but could be moving to a free-standing pad on the mall's west side."There is a lot of activity," Arnold said. "We're up considerably this year over the last couple of years, but not back to 2007-2008 standards."In those years, right before the Great Recession struck, Beaumont was in a building frenzy.Along with everyone else, the pins got knocked out, but commercial activity is returning, said Chris Boone, the city's community development director.Altus Healthcare Management plans to build a new hospice at Eighth Street and College Street valued at $3 million, he said.H-E-B still plans to build a new 68,000 square-foot supermarket on the property once occupied by the old Baptist Hospital, which was demolished. The San Antonio-based grocer hasn't submitted construction plans yet, Boone said."Fourth Street to Interstate 10 on College is the hottest stretch in Beaumont," Boone said.The city plans to build its new health department on the spot left vacant by the Texas National Guard. That building will be torn down and the city will build the new health department there.The city recently completed improvements on East Lucas Drive with a new sidewalk from Eastex to The Beaumont Housing Authority's new property, The Crossing. A Dollar General store will be built at 2730 E. Lucas, Boone said.Milt Prewitt, another Beaumont real estate broker, said the hottest economy in the country is Houston's. Lake Charles also is in a boom, he said."We're getting calls," he said. "But it's tough. We don't have the spec market like Houston does. We don't have a lot of large warehouse users. Ours is more of a fabricating and manufacturing market."Prewitt said the Beaumont area needs something driving the economy to create opportunities."We need more industrial," he said.DWallach@BeaumontEnterprise.com Twitter.com/dwallachCopyright: ___ (c)2013 the Beaumont Enterprise (Beaumont, Texas) Visit the Beaumont Enterprise (Beaumont, Texas) at .beaumontenterprise.com Distributed by MCT Information Services儲存倉