While Port Houston is breaking container volume records, recording its biggest July ever, it is also planning to develop real estate, speakers said at Greater Houston Partnership’s State of the Port event Wednesday.
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Port Houston previously announced that it is moving its administrative offices from Turning Basin Terminal near Loop 610 East to Midway’s new East River development in the Fifth Ward, keeping it along the Ship Channel, but farther inland.
Port of Houston Authority Commission Chairman Ric Campo revealed some plans for the current administration building at Wednesday’s event, but stopped short of offering specifics.
“We're going to take the old building and turn it into revenue-generating real estate,” Campo said. “That creates more value and then ultimately helps neighbors as well.”
The current administration building’s location is prime real estate, Port Houston Community Relations Director Maria Aguirre said.
“It’s by the water,” Aguirre said. “We want to make sure that we're developing that and using that for economic development.”
Port Houston this summer purchased two tracts of land in East River’s first phase, and it will build a 95K SF office building and a 300-space parking garage as well as a skybridge connecting the two structures. The building will be six floors, Aguirre said.
Since the development is near the downtown area, where the port was originally headquartered before it moved to the Turning Basin Terminal in the 1970s, it represents “a return to our roots and to where it all started,” Aguirre said.
She said it’s likely that other maritime businesses will move into the East River development to be closer to Port Houston.
“It will become a really interesting representation of our maritime industry,” Aguirre said.
The move comes as Port Houston reports strong and growing operations. In July, 344,163 twenty-foot equivalent units were handled, a 5% increase from July 2022.
The port benefited last year from the West Coast’s labor strikes and congestion, helping bump Houston to the fifth-busiest port in the U.S. by TEU volume, up from sixth-busiest the year before. A Savills report released in March 2023 shows that since 2019, Houston grew faster than any major port, with annual TEU volume up 32.9%.
“We are still maintaining a very strong business out of the container terminals,” Port Houston Execution Planning Manager Candice Armenoff said at the event. “Exports are helping to drive a lot of that strength right now.”
Export volumes were up 12% in July compared to last year, mainly due to strong demand for resins, the port reported. Overall, the port has seen a balanced flow of containers, sitting at about 51% imports and 49% exports this year, according to port data.
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