Council OKs funds for East End hub
Project will allow businesses to lease space out of warehouse, help train residents for jobs
Houston City Council on Wednesday approved $24 million in federal funding to construct an East End hub for new startups, allowing businesses to lease collaborative space out of a 300,000plus-square-foot warehouse in the Second Ward.
The project, dubbed the East
End Maker Hub, will be overseen by TXRX Labs, a nonprofit that will house inventors, crafters, coders and any venture “that involves an innovation,” Assistant Housing Director Ray Miller told council earlier this year.
The funds come from the U.S. Housing Department in the form of a $22.7 million loan and $1.4 million grant, which will go toward acquiring and renovating the property. The city will finance the 20-year loan through rent paid by the leasing startups, and fund most of the remaining $31 million project cost through federal tax credits.
TXRX Labs, which already provides small businesses access to 3D printers, laser cutters and other equipment at its current East End location, also is partnering with a second nonprofit, the Urban Partnerships Community Development Corporation, to provide an apprenticeship program to low-income East End residents at the hub.
The apprenticeship program, city officials said, is intended to equip residents with a range of “skills to access higher paid employment.”
Councilwoman Karla Cisneros, whose district includes the site of the new hub, said Wednesday she hopes the new space, located at 6501 Navigation, will help stymie gentrification in the fast-growing East End.
“It’s not just about the training that’s now going to be possible. It’s about the jobs that those people who take advantage of that will actually have in their community,” Cisneros said. “And what fights gentrification more than that — really lifting up the people who live there, so that they’re actually earning more money, and they can actually take care of their own bills and stay in their homes.”
Gaby Rowe, executive director of Rice University’s startup hub, Ion, said the Maker Hub would help prepare Houston’s workforce for an expected sharp rise in local advanced manufacturing jobs
during the next several years.
“We need to ensure that all of our communities in Houston are prepared, our youth are prepared with the skills necessary to be able to fill those jobs, so that Houstonians are in the neighborhoods that we care about,” Rowe said.
Patrick Ezzell, president of Urban Partnerships Community Development Corporation, told council Wednesday the Maker Hub would help satisfy the “huge pent-up demand” among small manufacturers for spaces like those provided by the new hub.
TXRX will occupy about 60,000 square feet at the Maker
Hub, Ezzell said, leaving about 240,000 square feet to lease to the manufacturers.
Urban Partnerships, established in 2017, is a collaboration between TXRX Labs and the Greater East End Management District aimed at spurring economic development in the East End.
The 6501 Navigation property is appraised at $13.4 million and includes a CenterPoint Energy building on the southern end, according to a city document. The city is paying about $12.4 million to acquire the property.
The housing department did not immediately respond to an inquiry about when the city expects to close the deal or when the hub is expected to open.