Experts: Economy grows despite oil woes

Northwest Houston continues to see new commercial and residential construction

Northwest Houston is feeling the sting from the downturn in the oil-and-gas industries, but the area’s economy as a whole is seeing sustained and steady growth in other sectors.

That’s the perspective of industry experts in transportation, real estate and economics who spoke during Houston Northwest Chamber of Commerce’s 2016 Economic Outlook Forum.

One of those is the real estate market, which saw growth in residential and commercial construction in 2015.

“This growth that we saw from last year has not stopped,” Harris County Precinct 4 Commissioner Jack Cagle said at the recent forum at Southwestern Energy in Spring. “Our builders are busy … and today we trying to make sure we’ve got the bridges and infrastructure in place.”

While single-family housing starts were down slightly in 2015, the regional market was still pretty robust, said Scott Davis, executive director for Houston-based Metrostudy.

“Our top 15 builders started 2,500 more homes than Atlanta, which is the No. 3 market,” Davis said. “We continue to provide the bulk of single-fam-

ily housing built the United States here in Houston and will continue to do so over each of the next three years.”

Parkway a hot spot

As expected, much of the development is happening or projected to happen along the newly opened segments of the Grand Parkway, connecting U.S. 290 Cypress to Interstate 69 north of Kingwood.

The segments located between U.S. 290 and Interstate 45, opened in early February.

The remaining segment, which connects interstates 45 and 69, opened the last week of March.

Much of those segments fall within Cagle’s precinct, as do other key roadways, such as Texas 249 in Tomball where the 153-acre Grand Parkway Town Center is under development.

Davis said the Houston metro area has seen steady growth since the last Census in 2010.

Influx of new residents

Davis said that over that five-year span, the Houston metro area has added more than 750,000 new residents, with many choosing to live in northwest Houston.

He said the region has seen “by far the largest growth of any metro area (in the nation), and the recently released Census statistics show that we added 159,000 people to the Houston metro area in the last year.”

Roughly 60,000 of those came through births, with the rest coming from new residents, he said.

While the energy industry is a major part of the local economy, Davis said much market growth has not been related to that sector.

Last year, University of Houston economist Bill Gilmer accurately predicted the regional economy would slow because of lower demand for oil and gas.

The region lost 17,000 energy-sector jobs last year.

Despite that, Davis said, “We still added 15,000 jobs last year.”

Health care, which is the region’s largest employer with more than 300,000 employees, spurred growth in 2015.

Davis projected more growth in the education and hospitality fields over the next year with some of that related to the coming of the Super Bowl in February.