The Houston Business Journal has a lengthy article with details of the latest done deal by Metro’s Real Estate Development Division:
The complicated set of real estate transactions gives Metro control of 20 acres just north of downtown for future transit needs, including a possible intermodal transit center.
Todd Mason, Metro’s vice president for real estate, says the transit authority did not need the property — yet — but waiting until later would have cost millions more.
“It’s not that we’re out speculating on land,” Mason says. “We’ll pay more now to make sure it doesn’t cost us and the taxpayers $15 million to $20 million more later.”
[snip]
Metro is mulling a number of options for the newly acquired acreage.
A bus layover facility currently on North San Jacinto may have to be moved as part of a flood control measure. If relocation is required, the 17-acre tract on North Main could serve as a replacement facility.
Parking buses at a layover facility close to downtown would save Metro $2 million in annual operating costs, Mason says.
The sites along North Main north of Interstate 10 also are being considered for development of an intermodal center, where a variety of transit vehicles could converge. (See “All Aboard for intermodal transit center,” April 22, 2005.)
Even if an intermodal center is not ultimately built there, North Main will still have to be widened because the thoroughfare is an intersecting point for future Metro transit lines.
Light rail is expected to be extended north from the existing line toward the acquired sites. And some form of fixed guided rapid transit is expected to run south from Northline Mall along Main.
Those two transit systems will meet at the narrow tunnel under the Union Pacific railroad tracks, Mason says, so Metro will probably have to widen Main Street and put a station there.
Rice University is also involved in the deal:
Metro, in turn, will lease a portion of the parcel to Rice University for use as a data center on a short-term basis at a rental rate of $100 per year.
Power outage problems at the main campus data center and the need for a back-up tech hub attracted Rice to the well-suited site, which contains an existing data center that was built five years ago for more than $20 million but never opened for business.
