Public-Private Partnerships in Houston, Texas

In Houston, Texas, located in Harris County, the county is in a public-private partnership to build five complexes for affordable senior citizen housing. They are scheduled to open a 100-unit complex called Baybrook Park, which is open to seniors over the age of 55 who meet HUD income requirements. Harris County operates a voucher program to provide housing and benefit more than 7,000 residents. These types of programs are necessary to make sure that the disadvantaged have adequate housing and other services.
This type of partnership become more critical, with tightening profit margins for real estate developers, and needs to redevelop center city areas.
With higher interest rates and raw materials cost, the cost of development projects is increasing. After 10 years of booming real estate development and rising prices, the Dallas, and Houston, Texas real estate markets are slowing down. Also some of the local economy has been damaged by hurricane Rita and Katrina, with New Orleans area factories still not operating. Commercial rental rates in Dallas have actually dropped 10 to 15 with similar drops in rates in Houston.
To continue real estate development, key projects are counting on public-private partnerships for funding and support. Public-private partnerships can be done in a variety of ways. Often a city or state agency will set up a separate authority (Transit Authority, Development Authority) to then make a partnership with private developers. Or in this case the arrangement is more direct between the city, county and state government operating through an Improvement District, with private developers. So, the Federal government uses their funding capacities and taxing authority to make projects possible that from a strictly profit making standpoint would not work.
In Houston many projects of this type already exist such as Minute Maid Park, Metro-Rail and the Main Street Project. Metrorail is the new light rail system built in Houston over a 7.5 mile stretch, connecting the Museum District, Rice University, Texas Medical Center and the Houston Zoo and Reliant Park. It is expected to help the development of $9 billion of residential and commercial development along its route.

The partnership to make the Market Street project is intended to be funded by sales tax dollars. Hopefully, this expense will be paid back by creating $1 million more in sales tax per year. This is an alternative to using property taxes to fund the Town Center Improvement District, to fund the public and private portions of expenses.
They also developed Central Park which can be used for leisure activities, and as an entertainment center.
The developer Trademark is collaborating with the Woodlands' Town Center Improvement District to bring the Market Street project into reality. The Market Street project is planned to get an old fashioned downtown feeling, with a walk-able district including shopping, entertainment, public art projects and a Central Park, with a live performance stage. This is, on a grander scale, similar to projects planned in Boulder, and Denver Colorado, to give people a more dense downtown that is not only made of parking lots and malls.

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Howard Giske writes on real estate issues for Las Vegas real estate and www.homesparadise.com (real estate nationwide) and www.golfcourseparadise.com (golf course communities).