KUBE-TV sold in package deal; Wolff Foundation gifts $13M to UH
RNN National Media Group said it had reached an agreement to purchase seven full-power television stations and one Class A station from NRJ for an undisclosed amount. Included in the package is KUBE-TV (Channel 57), serving the Houston market.
The package includes stations in the Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Dallas-Ft. Worth, San Francisco Oakland-San Jose, Boston and Honolulu metropolitan areas.
Terms of the deal were not disclosed. With the purchase, RNN, based in Rye Brook, N.Y., will operate in eight of the Top 10 TV markets covering more than 28 percent of the country and more than 86 million people, making it the largest group of independent stations and among the 10 largest broadcasters by reach in the United States.
The transaction, which is subject to regulatory approval, is expected to close in the first quarter of 2020.
Wolff Foundation gives $13M to UH
The Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Family Foundation has given $13 million to the University of Houston’s entrepreneurship program, which had already been named after the couple.
The school’s entrepreneurship program was launched in the 1990s and renamed the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship in 2007. Melvyn Wolff, who died in 2017, was the former chairman of Star Furniture.
The gift announced Monday will be used to create three endowments for the Wolff Center:
• $7 million to create the Dave Cook Leadership Endowment, named after center director Dave Cook, to support leadership roles within the Wolff Center
• $4 million to create the Wolff Legacy Endowment, to support activities that will increase the number of students involved in the Wolff Center and increase the number of businesses created by Wolff Center students and alumni
• $2 million to create the Cyvia and Melvyn Wolff Endowed Chair(s)/Professorship(s) in Entrepreneurship, supporting new research in entrepreneurship, expanding student participation in entrepreneurship across the university and increasing community outreach.
The donation is expected to draw an additional $2 million in matching grants from the state of Texas, bringing its total expected impact to $15 million.
Cannon launches hub downtown
The Cannon startup hub opened its downtown location Monday.
Its latest coworking space opened on the 13th floor of the Amegy Bank building at 1801 Main St., the first of many innovation efforts that Cannon will oversee at 1801 Main.
Event space on the 11th floor will open to host a variety of entrepreneurial events. And the Downtown Launchpad is slated to open on the 10th floor next year. The Launchpad, managed by the Cannon, will be anchored by startup assistance organizations MassChallenge and gener8tor, based in Massachusetts and Wisconsin, respectively, and will have space for incubator programs, labs, coworking desks and corporate innovation areas.
The Launch Pad was conceived by Central Houston, a nonprofit involved in the planning and implementation of downtown’s redevelopment and is funded by its partner organization the Downtown Redevelopment Authority, which administers funds collected by the tax increment reinvestment zone.
Whitestone buys retail property
Houston-based Whitestone REIT has acquired Las Colinas Village, a 104,915-square-foot center in Las Colinas, an upwardly mobile, young professional community of Irving. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
Las Colinas is home to corporate headquarters for Exxon Mobil, Fluor, Kimberly-Clark, CMC Commercial Metals and Celanese. The Las Colinas Village is Whitestone’s eighth property acquisition in its Dallas-Fort Worth market, bringing its total leasable square feet in the region to approximately 670,000.
The property is currently 85.6 percent occupied and contains the potential for additional pad site developments on land that was included in the original purchase price. Also included are options to acquire three adjacent nonowned single-tenant pads.