America's Hottest Market?

Houstons Energy Corridor is booming. (Some say it's the high oil prices; we think it's America's long love affair with corridors.) The submarket has 2.9M SF under construction--excluding owner-occupied buildings--and 3.8M SF more breaking ground shortly. But dont worry about a bubble.

This morning, over 800 joined us at Bisnow's Future of the Energy Corridor event where they learned that 50% of that 2.9M SF is already spoken for.And if you remove two buildings that dont deliver until 2014, its 80% pre-leased. (Six of our 10 development panelists had projects under construction.) That leaves very little space available for a plethora of expanding businesses. Although energy-related companies constitute the bulk of activity--panelist Moody Rambin managing director Bob Cromwell says 85% of his tenants have industry ties--theres a surge in healthcare users; many of the nations top-ranked master-planned communities are within miles of the Corridor.