I read community newspapers from around the region and if there's one in particular

you like that gives a good local news in me an email, I may not know about it. And one of the things

I notice, even from the Houston Business Journal, which is very city of Houston specific as part

of the business journal family, that even within this organization, that even within this entity that

much like the Chronicle still thinks the world begins and ends in downtown Houston, the deals that

are happening that involve real estate and retail are occurring outside the city of Houston,

outside Harris County. They're occurring in the northwest, Tom Ball, McDowell,

you cypress area. They're occurring in the do north, woodlands area and the communities around that.

And they're occurring in the south, league city, Texas city, Webster, those communities. That's where

the action is. That's where the big projects are. And I used to think, well, that's where the land is

because city Houston is built out. That's not the issue. Lonnie Par was a friend of mine who had a

company called Tara Associates. And when I was running in 2001, I went to Lonnie Par because I

had learned that he was the guy in charge of site selection for big box stores, Target. Walmart

wasn't really building in this area much at the time, but it was Target and Whole Foods and

those types of, I forget which all of them were, but at the time I knew. And I said, and he showed

me a stat that he had in the last 57 sites he had selected for major big box stores. And I

understand big box is not what you want. You won't locally. I got that. But it is an indicator of

rooftops and a solid economic climate that's probably underserved and that is safe and secure

to do business in. Nobody's building in downtown San Francisco. Nobody is replacing the tenants that

are leaving. So he had done, I remember the number 57 site selections and say the last two years.

And 56 had been outside the city of Houston. And my first question was to what extent is that

related to there are no big box spaces left in the city.

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