A few links

• Did you know what is the current average Super Bowl ticket price? Current average ticket price for this year's Super Bowl is $4,375 (last year at this time the tickets were going for $2,624).
  
• A few forecasts for Tarrant County in 2011; among them - HEB is coming to DFW:

HEB opened its northern most grocery store in Burleson in 2010 and is set to open a Granbury location in 2011. Makens said the retailer – a household name throughout central and western Texas and the same company that produced Central Market – is poised to attack the Metroplex via its 500,000-square-foot distribution center on 158 acres in Terrell, and announced last year.

“I think that distribution center will be used to service the D-FW area,” Makens said. “… I don’t see HEB entering this market with just a few stores, not when you consider they are the second largest grocer in Texas and own over a 50 percent market share in San Antonio, a 60 percent market share in Austin, and 17 percent market share in Houston.

• From yesterday - Dallas-based AT&T's profit way down.
• Hyundai to move into 45,000 square feet offices in Plano.
• [Unrelated] A baseball player walks away from a guaranteed contract worth millions because he "has enough already". Have you ever heard of something like this?http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/blog/2011/01/super-bowl-ticket-supply-stymies-cost.html

Homelessness in Dallas County

Apparently volunteers in the city of Dallas conduct an annual 'homeless census', conducting a physical count  of the homeless in the streets of Dallas County. Here is a chart with the numbers of the homeless from the last eight years' counts.

(Click chart for larger view)

Today Dallas is conducting its count for 2011, and the data will be available in the Spring.

• I wonder what explains the low numbers in 2008. Could it have to do with a particularly bad weather on the day of the count?

Data from the Dallas Morning News article.

A few links

• This or this is not(!) how Dallas was hoping to make news for hosting SuperBowl. I would have thought that the state of Chuck Norris would have had a better security plan for the pre-Superbowl activities!

• The Dallas Regional Chamber announces their goals for 2011-2015:

   * Add more total jobs than any other U.S. region between 2010 and 2015. 

   * Be a top five U.S. region for new technology jobs created between 2010 and 2015.

   * Improve the Dallas ISD high school graduation rate from the current 67 percent to 80 percent by 2015.

   * Increase the percentage of Dallas region residents who hold advanced degrees from the current 10 percent to 15 percent. 

• [Unrelated] I wonder what Shanghai's goals were 20 years ago. Whatever they were, the change is pretty dramatic:

Image is from here, and a hat tip to Marginal Revolution

Industrial property - DFW a barometer for the US

Interesting piece from a few days ago on the DFW industrial property market.

"Currently, the DFW vacancy rate stands at 12.2 percent, down from 14.5 percent at the bottom of the downturn. In normal times, a 12-percent vacancy rate would be a trigger point for development. ...

...trends in commercial real estate—which includes industrial properties—usually lag behind residential sector trends by one to two years...

[Developer from Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. Terry Darrow] is optimistic the DFW property market has found a bottom. Due to falling vacancies and little new supply, rental rates have begun to stabilize, he says. Rents are starting to show marginal improvement, and landlords are more reluctant to offer concessions to lure or keep tenants, he adds.

Darrow says that while 2011 will be a "firming year" for DFW industrial property, he doesn't expect the pendulum to swing the sellers' way until the very end of 2011 or the start of 2012. He advises companies looking to make a deal in the market to act sooner rather than later.

"If you are ever going to consider a move, now is the time," he says. "

More about Texas job gains

Following up yesterday's post on total job creation in Texas in 2010, here is a look at which industries generated jobs in Texas in 2010.

Top gaining Texas industries by job growth in 2010:

• Mining and Logging (14.8% growth in jobs; most of this in oil and gas, I suppose?)
• Construction (5% growth)
• Manufacturing (3.4%)

The same industries also added the largest numbers of positions in the month of December:

• Construction (8,700 jobs added in December; 32,300 added in 2010)
• Manufacturing (3,100 jobs in December; 28,000 added in 2010)
• Mining and Logging (1,400 jobs in December; 29,400 added in 2010)
• Leisure and Hospitality (6,600 jobs in December; 25,000 added in 2010)
• Other Services - automotive, computer, office machine, appliance repair (3,400 jobs added in December)

And just in case you are wondering, the number of people currently working in Texas is 12.2 million (the Texas Labor Force)
(Info from Texas Business)

Texas adds 230,800 jobs in 2010

Texas added 230,800 jobs in 2010. That is more than twice as many jobs than the second biggest job-adding state - California. There are weak spots in Texas economy to be sure, but it is good to see some job gains coming back.

Click here for a sortable database of states by job gains.

A few links

• A dozen new restaurants opening in Dallas - that has got to be a good sign for the local economy. 

• The Houston Chronicle explains why banks like Texas. 

"All along, we have believed this is a market to be in," said Manolo Sanchez, an executive of BBVA Compass, a Spanish banking giant that started acquiring banks in Texas in 2005 and now controls about 6 percent of the state's deposits. "We could have bought assets in other states. We chose this state. There are so many great things about Texas. It underscores what we've been saying all along: This is the right place to grow. ...

"We're pretty bullish on the state," Houston [Chase] region chairman Mike Ballases said. Stressing that a bank "can't outperform the economy it's in," Ballases said Texas benefits from a strongly pro-business political and economic environment, as well as increasing globalization. The latter, he said, helps places like the Port of Houston by boosting international trade. Demographics are another Texas strength. The latest census figures show the state grew 20.6 percent over the last decade, more than double the rate of the U.S. overall." (more here)

• Australian Qantas Airlines cutting flights to San Francisco and connecting Sydney to DFW instead, starting May 16, 2011. At 8578 this will be the longest Boeing 747 route in the world. Welcome, Qantas!