Very interesting, Houston has the population, younger and older with the means- especially that oil & gas sector, but I think the whole travel time issue is going to rise again for those in the suburbs. You still have the corporate dollars and younger urban populace downtown, but you go back to competing with other venues and options because that younger downtown crowd makes 25%-50% of what the suburban crowd makes. The oil money is 45 minutes outside of downtown.
Unless you are starting games right after the 9-5ers get out, that double commute isn't happening, and you go back to having to compete on price to meet your volume. Austin gets you the Houston suburban crown on the western side of town, and they're punting 50-60K suburban households on the eastern side by choosing Austin, but you would gain all of Austin's suburbs and downtown which may not be as wealthy some of Houston's but there are way more households in shorter travel time. Take out the travel time, and competition where you won't have to compete on the price and volume scale, add in the corporate dollars, and I think you have a team that can earn $50M/year over ARI.
I'm not familiar with the municipalities in Austin, but that doesn't sound surprising, it's always easier when a muni is business friendly. Never worked on arena deals, but almost always have to deal with a muni on the real estate projects I work on. Just dealing with one individual can be a roadblock, I can only imagine how prolonged of a process that can be with a whole committee.
The other thing I'll add is, some of those Austin companies have some very high performing stocks and the employees are esoped up. Higher valuations, high end tech salaries, and a number of enterprise software cash cows.... I'm tipping the scale towards Austin. Both cities have seen a lot of population growth, but Austin's has been double digit growth for a while, and kids. Lots of kids. Houston's a little on the younger side downtown.
