Pflag Reporter

An organization composed of 25 of the country’s most influential development site hunters on Jan. 10 named Pflugerville’s Community Development Corporation the inaugural winner of its Excellence in Economic Development Award.

The Chicago-based Site Selector’s Guild announced the winners of its first annual awards last week, recognizing individuals and organizations for their contributions to investment attraction and job creation in their communities.

Awards were given in five categories: Small Town Economic Development Organization, County EDO, Metropolitan Area EDO, State EDO, and Special Jurisdiction EDO.

“We were nominated in the Small Towns category for cities with under 50,000 people,” PCDC Director Floyd Akers said. “This is a highly coveted area, Central Texas, and to be recognized as one of the outstanding economic development organizations not just in Central Texas, but in the entire nation, I think puts us in a very select company.”

Pflugerville CDC won its distinction in the Small Town EDO category, after garnering a nomination from Austin-based Guild member Angelou Economics.

“Our experience with PCDC has been phenomenal,” Angelou Economics CEO Angelos Angelou said. “Particularly when it relates to private-sector clients who locate potential projects in the city of Pflugerville.”

Angelou’s company targets high impact high-tech development projects. He said over the past four years, 80 percent of those projects have been in the renewable energy sector.

He has collaborated with PCDC for roughly two years, and in that time has helped land such recent projects as the 60-megawatt solar farm and a $210 million data storage center for the city.

“Truly the city has been outstanding in their cooperation with me and the clients, and their building permit process has been very expeditious. I don’t think there is any city that has pursued their vision of economic development as has the city of Pflugerville.” Angelou said. “When my clients have a project that needs to be done in a very quick time frame, where the city of Pflugerville makes sense, I will not hesitate for a second to recommend the city of Pflugerville because I think it’s one among a handful of communities that are taking economic development seriously.”

The Guild, established in 2010, today includes 25 of the nation’s top site selection consultants.

Akers will receive PCDC’s award at the Excellence in Economic Development Award ceremony during the Site Selectors Guild Conference planned for Jan. 22-24 in Orlando, Fla., where Florida Gov. Rick Scott will give a keynote address.

Angelou said the Guild’s members are extremely exclusive when evaluating potential members, and equally as competitive with each other – a competition that could bode well, he said, for the city now that the group has recognized Pflugerville as fertile ground for development.

“They’ll know that we’re a good organization to deal with, that we’re innovative,” Akers said. “We do what we say we’re going to do. We land large projects. We work well with site selectors, and we’re a pro-business community.”

In the final three months of 2011, PCDC signed contracts to bring $225 million in capital investment to Pflugerville along with 357 new jobs that guarantee average wages of more than $50,000 plus benefits.

Akers said PCDC is currently in negotiations with Fortune 500 companies looking to land large, capital-intensive projects.

“Within the next two years Pflugerville will see over a billion dollars in capital investment and hundreds, if not thousands of new job,” Akers said.

By James Rincon

Pflag Reporter

A mere seven months after its runways opened for takeoff, Austin Executive Airport’s second round of expansion is ready to take flight.

The company finalized contracts Monday, AEA Development Vice President Andrew Perry said Tuesday at the Pflugerville Chamber of Commerce monthly luncheon, to add a 23,400-square-foot private aircraft hangar and 30,000 square feet of office space to the airport, which sits just south of Pflugerville in Austin’s land rights.

“We’re full. I can hold maybe one or two more airplanes, but for the most part we’re full. That is a good thing, and we are excited,” Perry said. “I can’t build the hangar fast enough. Luckily we already permitted it, which will help.”

Formerly known as Bird’s Nest Airport, Ron Henriksen bought the vacant property 4 years ago, and poured $34 million of renovations into what is now the country’s newest general aviation airport.

The airport can currently house more than 50 planes for clients ranging from fly-by advertisement companies to jet-setting Fortune 500 CEOs. Its 6,025-foot runway can land a 740, and the airport’s 27,000-square-foot terminal is outfitted with luxury accommodations that cater to both customers and crew members.

Perry said Henriksen’s airports in Austin, Dallas and Houston have flourished in spite of the sluggish economy, thanks in large part to strong target markets in each region.

“When the big [economic downturn] came along, private aviation was really hit, and it actually hasn’t really come back that strong. It’s still a bit sluggish out there,” Perry said. “Houston and Dallas have done very well… because of oil and gas. I think the tech industry, at least in Austin, seems fairly strong as far as the aviation portion goes. Hopefully we start climbing out of this, and just continue to grow.”

Perry said a cavalcade of industries in Austin opt for AEA over Austin-Bergstrom International Airport, but the technology industry stands out as the area’s driving economic force.

“You’ve got a lot of big headquarters here, and that’s what props it up,” Perry said. “You’ve got a lot people who are trying to do business with them, or people who are doing business with them flying in to meet with them, and with all the tech-kind of businesses in the Austin area, absolutely that’s a big part of our target.”

Despite a history of setbacks and uncertainty surrounding Austin’s playing host to the nation’s first Formula One race, Perry said there has been considerable interest in AEA from potential race-goers, and he expects the event to live up to its hype as an economic stimulus.

“The race is going to be nuts. There are a lot of people in Austin who are going to get their eyes wide-opened,” he said.

Perry said AEA has only a nascent marketing strategy for catering to the region’s major event such as the Austin City Limits Festival and the South By Southwest Film, Tech and Movie Festival.

However, they have seen an uptick in clientele flying in to catch Texas Longhorn football.

“That’s probably a market we’re still trying to break into,” Perry said. “This was our first year, so marketing opportunities were slim, and obviously we needed to get through the first eight months operationally to know a little bit more about Austin and what some of those events and how to market them.

“Just because it’s a big event doesn’t mean people will be flying in stars on airplanes. We’ll get a better handle on what’s going on now that we’ve got almost a year under our belts.”

For now, Perry said, AEA will focus its attention on catering to the corporate needs of the area, but with continued expansion, he expects the airport to soon become an important player in private aviation.

“We want to be a premier airport. That’s our goal and that’s what we will be. The facility is one of the nicest in the Midwest, if not the United States,” Perry said. “A mile of road will take you a mile, but that mile of runway will take you to Europe.”

By James Rincon

Pflag Reporter

Pflugerville Community Development Corporation unveils plans for its 167-acre Renewable Energy Business Park on Friday and with them, the park’s first eco-friendly edifice – a solar charging station for electric vehicles.

“Pflugerville, I think, will be known very shortly in the future as the… Solar Capital of Texas,” PCDC Director Floyd Akers said. “What we’re hoping to achieve with this new renewable energy park is to bring more industry in and to celebrate that.”

Local officials and electric car enthusiasts turned out to the future site of the green-energy business park on the southwest corner of East Pecan Street and state Highway 183 in Pflugerville , where Akers showcased the two-car Solar Sail charging station engineered by New York City-based solar company Pvilion.

“I call it our solar gateway to Pflugerville, which is kind of unique to this area. I think it’s going to make us stand out in this Central Texas region,” Pflugerville Mayor Pro Tem Victor Gonzales said.

The station is one of 12 stations slated to come to Pflugerville through grant funds from the Department of Energy.

“This has been a labor of love for the [PCDC] board because we love what we do for Pflugerville,” PCDC Board President David Clay said. “It has been a long project, to get this started, and the property behind me is going to continue to be a labor of love for the board.”

The charging station has outlets for two vehicles and is shaded by a canopy of flexible thin-film solar panels and is mounted with multicolor LED lights that Akers said can be programmed to give off colorful light shows at night. The stations chargers are plugged into the electrical grid and are not reliant on the solar panels to function.

Akers said the he considers the solar structure a piece of “functional art”, adding that the thin-film solar technology allowed architects to design the station’s aesthetically.

“What we’ve created here… is something that can work 24-7. It will be providing lights, charging cars, doing everything you want 24 hours a day, which is very rare for something like solar,” Pvilion co-founder Colin Touhey said. “We’re really excited the beauty of it will bring people to town and be the gateway to Pflugerville.”

The station’s unveiling drew members of Austin’s Nissan Leaf Club – a web-based group of individuals who share a love of one of the Japanese car maker’s newest all-electric vehicle.

Leaf Club member Michael Chamberlain drove his Leaf up from Austin to juice up at the new station. He said he’s driven an electric car for the past seven years, including two cars he built using golf cart batteries years before he bought his Leaf.

“My second model was a ’92 Toyota Tercel that I converted, and it was a full highway-class vehicle,” Chamberlain said. “But it doesn’t even compare. The Leaf is about 10,000 times better.”

Pflugerville resident Rod Reyna drove his new Chevy Volt to the unveiling from his home in the Saxony subdivision. Reyna won his electric car from his Oncor Energy Company after saving the highest percentage of electricity of any customer in the state.

Renya received his Volt – which runs on both gasoline and electricity – on Dec. 10 and had yet to put gas in it at the Dec. 30 event.

“It feels great to have this new station to start with and another coming into Stone Hill, the library and City Hall,” Reyna said. “I can’t wait to use them all.”

Austin Executive Airport’s 6,025-foot runway is long enough to service a 737 aircraft. The airport can house more than 50 planes, and plans for additional hangars were in the works earlier this year. (Photo courtesy of Austin Executive Airport)

Pflag staff

More than 450 spectators gathered on June 8 for the grand opening of Austin Executive Airport, which sits atop the once rundown runway of what used to be Bird’s Nest Airport at the southeast corner of Cameron Road and state Highway 130.

Sen. Kirk Watson, Pflugerville Mayor Jeff Coleman and members of the Pflugerville Chamber of Commerce were among the civic leaders in attendance for the event.

Airport owner Ron Henriksen’s $33 million renovation brought 6,025 feet of runway and a fully loaded luxury terminal to the pastures of Austin’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, where more than 50 private planes can be stored for clients ranging from weekend flyers to jet-setting corporate CEOs – and the expansion comes not a moment too soon.

“Austin was the largest city in the United States without a reliever airport,” AEA Executive Director Andrew Perry said. “In the late 90s, Austin had two airports close, which were Mueller and the old Tim’s Executive Airpark. About 300 airplanes were displaced around the Austin area, so they’ve been looking to find a reliever airport to Austin-Bergstrom over the last 11 years or so. So we knew there was an opportunity and Austin really needed it.”

The airport’s 27,000-square-foot terminal provides its clientele with a gamut of high-end accommodations, including a custom computer lab equipped with software that provides information on flying conditions, a projection-screen movie theater with rows of leather recliners, three kitchens, two fully furnished bedrooms for weary pilots and travelers, four courtesy cars at clients’ disposal, a washer and dryer and several lounge areas to unwind before and after flights.

In June, Perry said demand continues to grow and plans were already drawn up to build more hangars as soon as July.

Ryan Dodson opened Freedom Machine Tattoo in February. Dodson’s parlor is Pflugerville’s first and only, and required a special use permit to locate downtown. (Photo by James Rincon/Pflag)

City’s first tattoo parlor opens in downtown area

Pflag staff

Pflugerville’s first and only tattoo parlor opened its doors Feb. 21 in the heart of the downtown district.

Los Angeles-born artist and Freedom Machine Tattoo shop owner Ryan Dodson said he saw twice the traffic he anticipated in his first few months of business, and it’s only gaining steam.

“I haven’t even advertised,” Dodson said. “They come in here and see it’s nice and clean and the staff is really friendly. I haven’t heard one bad thing about this shop. It’s been very well-received.”

Just three months earlier, the zoning ordinances made it virtually impossible to open a tattoo parlor within the city’s limits, much less smack-dab in the center of its historic downtown on the corner of First Street and Railroad Avenue.

Dodson brought his idea to the Pflugerville City Council which, after well-attended public hearings on the matter, gave him a special use permit for his location.

“The ones who look down on the tattoo shops are also the ones who are very vocal,” said Dodson, who grew up in Southern California, where he went to art school at age 18. By 21, he was tattooing full time. “I think the majority of the population in Pflugerville is really cool with the idea of a tattoo shop, but the ones who aren’t are going to be the ones who come in on their day off to the City Council and voice their opinion. I respect their opinion, but a lot of what they were saying was way off.”

Freedom Machine Tattoo employs three artists and is open from noon to 9 p.m. seven days a week.

Cinemark opened a new, nine-screen movie theater at Stone Hill Town Center in April. The grand opening included appearances by celebrity impersonators, including one dressed as Pee-Wee Herman (above). (Photo by Cheryl P. Rollman for Pflag)

Pflag staff

Cinemark opened its newest nine-screen, all-digital movie theatre featuring the new Cinemark NextGen cinema design concept April 29 at Stone Hill Town Center in Pflugerville. The theatre features large, wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling screens, custom designed sound systems, and digital presentation in every auditorium. Five of the auditoriums are “Real D 3D” capable.

Members of the Pflugerville City Council and Pflugerville Chamber of Commerce were on hand April 28 to celebrate the opening of the new theater during a VIP grand opening event. Guests were treated to free movie screenings, popcorn, sodas, performances by the Hendrickson High School Jazz Band and antics from impersonators taking on roles such as Pee-Wee Herman, Jack Sparrow and Charlie Chaplin.

Pflag Reporter

A 50-acre tract of land that was once set to become Pflugerville’s biggest tourist haven changed course in 2011, and now the Renewable Energy Business Park is quickly becoming an attraction of a different kind.

An agreement dating back to December 2009 set aside 50 acres of land owned by the Pflugerville Community Development Corporation to become a $16 million waterpark.

Development deadlines for the project fruitlessly came and went, and in June 2010 PCDC rescinded its agreement with the park’s developers and changed course to turn that land at the corner of Pecan Street West and state Highway 130 into a business park for companies specializing in the green-energy industry (see page A5 for more information).

In September PCDC named former city attorney Floyd Akers as its new director, and before the month was through, the development corporation finalized agreements to bring 200 jobs along with the first tenant of the Renewable Energy Business Park.

Florida-based solar-technology manufacturer Complete Energy Systems will relocate its headquarters and operations to Pflugerville, bringing with it a 100,000-square-foot manufacturing site, and at least 200 jobs paying average salaries of $50,000 by January 2014.

The city approved a 380 economic development agreement that will abate 50 percent of CES personal property taxes for up to five years, with total payments to CES not to exceed $375,000.

Additionally, PCDC has agreed to pay CES $3,000 per job created for up to 250 new jobs.

CES is an umbrella company formed of subsidiaries that service targeted green-tech markets. It currently has two subsidiaries; a solar cell manufacturer and a company that manufactures mobile renewable power generators.

Pflugerville Community Development Corporation approved incentive agreements for the second multimillion-dollar development project to call Pflugerville home in as many months.

Since former city attorney Floyd Akers took the reins as PCDC’s executive director in late September, the development company has signed contracts with multinational conglomerate Baryonyx Corp. to construct a $210 million data center in Pflugerville, and it will soon ask City Council to approve incentives for a $3 million Department of Public Safety drivers license “megacenter” – one of only six planned throughout the state.

“We have a new, very aggressive leader at the helm of the Pflugerville Community Development Corporation,” City Manager Brandon Wade said of Akers during a state of the city address. “If you want Floyd to do something, you better be certain that you really want him to do it, because you point him in a direction and he’s going to go there real hard and heavy.”

By November, PCDC landed another foreign-based company to its new green business park, signing agreements to bring data-storage center WindData to the city along with $210 million worth of capital construction and at least 100 jobs with an average salary of $67,000 within a 10-year period.

WindData is a subsidiary of parts of United Kingdom-based conglomerate Baryonyx Corp., which will fund the initial phase of the data center.

Akers said the three-phase project is planned to ultimately have five buildings amounting to $350 million worth of construction and housing upwards of $650 million of property within those buildings.

In exchange, PCDC will pay WindData $150,000 in annual incentives for the next 10 years as well as $3,000 for every job the center creates in the city beyond the first 30 and up to 270. The city has additionally agreed to rebate 70 percent of the data center’s property tax for three years.

Normally a data-storage center would not qualify as a green-tech company. However, WindData will run on power generated by wind turbines that Baryonyx Corp is raising throughout the state. If completed to the specification of its agreement with PCDC, the addition of WindData to Pflugerville will increase the city’s tax base by 15 percent, according to City Manager Brandon Wade.

This year’s initiative is the first time the company will recycle both old Christmas trees and electronics at the same time.

“This is the third year that the public is invited to recycle their old Christmas trees at Samsung Austin Semiconductor, but this is the first year that we will also be recycling e-waste,” Doug Bradford, environmental engineer for Samsung Austin Semiconductor, said in a written statement. “We are excited to expand this environmentally friendly program that will divert unwanted trees and electronics from our landfills.”

Electronics that may be recycled include computers, monitors, TVs, phones and laptops. Home appliances will not be recycled.

For more information about the recycling drive, call 672-1000.

State sales tax revenue has now increased for 20 consecutive months, according to the comptroller’s office.

“Sales tax revenue in all major economic sectors improved over a year ago,” Combs said in a written statement. “While sales tax receipts associated with oil and natural gas production remains the strongest source of growth, there were strong increases from the consumer-driven sectors of retail trade and restaurants.”

Combs this month will send December sales tax allocations totaling $478.3 million to cities, counties, transit systems and special purpose taxing districts, up 9.7 percent compared to December 2010.

The sales tax figures represent sales that occurred in October.

Locally, Pflugerville will receive a sales tax allocation of $419,328 this month, a 19-percent increase from the same month a year ago.

So far this year, Pflugerville has netted $5.87 million in sales tax allocations, representing a 15.22 percent spike over allocations received during the same period last year.