🟪 Judge denies petition to halt Austin Convention Center project (KUT)

🟪 Boos, fear and frustration greet Austin police chief at tense immigration town hall (Austin American-Statesman)

🟪 Samsung confirms 2026 Taylor operations; staff has been working out of site since November (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Southeast Travis County will elect a new leader for the first time in decades. Here’s who’s running. (KUT)

🟪 As Austin's office pipeline dries up, occupancy rates have almost nowhere to go but up (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Saudia Arabia taps Austin as its base camp for 2026 FIFA World Cup (Austin Business Journal)

🟪 Trump's ICE crackdown will limit Texas job growth in 2026, Dallas Fed says (Houston Chronicle)

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🟪 [Team]: Bingham Group is pleased to welcome Annick Beaudet, MPA, FAICP as a Senior Consultant focused on Mobility and Public Infrastructure.

Based in Austin, Annick brings nearly 30 years of experience working at the intersection of transportation systems, land use, and public-sector capital programs, with a reputation for helping public agencies turn ambitious visions into executable, results-driven initiatives.

Before entering consulting, Annick spent 18 years in senior leadership roles with the City of Austin, including Assistant Director of the Austin Transportation Department and Mobility Officer for Project Connect, where she helped coordinate and advance Central Texas’s landmark transit expansion efforts.

For organizations exploring strategic partners to advance mobility or public infrastructure priorities, Annick’s addition further expands Bingham Group’s ability to support complex, high-impact initiatives. Contact us here.

🟪 [Podcast] Also, check out my recent feature on the Austin Eras Podcast. Host Adam Flagg and I discuss my path into community leadership and the lobbying profession, growing up in Austin, and what’s shaping the future of Central Texas.

🟪 Book Review - The Austin–San Antonio Megaregion: Opportunity and Experience

🏛️ Council Meeting

✅ Judge denies petition to halt Austin Convention Center project (KUT)

Funding for Austin's social service programs is in line for further cuts, and the city is now evaluating how to both save and reduce portions of its tens of millions of dollars in annual spending.

“I know we’re just at a very challenging time as an organization, and I know these are going to be difficult decisions. But I do feel like that if we all come together, all of the community, all of one voice and all of the partners, and we all work on this together, we can get to a very good place," Assistant City Manager Stephanie Hayden-Howard said Feb. 4.

Last year, City Council originally passed a fiscal year 2025-26 budget with significant investments in social services like homelessness response, public health programming, violence interruption and resident assistance.

That added spending was backed by a tax increase presented for voter approval through Proposition Q. However, most of the funding anticipated by council was stripped away in a budget rewrite after voters rejected the tax measure… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Boos, fear and frustration greet Austin police chief at tense immigration town hall (Austin American-Statesman)

Tension rippled through the cafeteria of a South Austin elementary school Thursday night where hundreds gathered to hear Austin Police Chief Lisa Davis explain how her officers will interact with the federal agents carry out the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

Watch More The town hall, hosted by the three Austin City Council members representing the city’s most heavily Latino areas, marked Davis’ first appearance before the general public since concerns intensified that the Austin Police Department has been overly cooperative with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

WatchFrustration erupted almost immediately. Boos and shouts broke out when Davis explained that state law allows officers to contact immigration authorities if they encounter a person flagged with an “administrative warrant” in a federal database officers routinely use to check for criminal warrants. Davis was referring to Senate Bill 4, a 2017 state law that bars local governments from limiting enforcement of federal immigration laws and allows penalties — including removal from office — for officials who do.

“Under Senate Bill 4, we have to allow officers to call," Davis said. More The town hall, hosted by the three Austin City Council members representing the city’s most heavily Latino areas, marked Davis’ first appearance before the general public since concerns intensified that the Austin Police Department has been overly cooperative with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Samsung confirms 2026 Taylor operations; staff has been working out of site since November (Austin Business Journal)

Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has confirmed its long-anticipated Taylor semiconductor factory will be operational by the end of this year. In fact, several hundred employees have been working out of the sprawling 1,200-acre campus since November.

That acknowledgement marks a major milestone for the South Korean electronics giant at a project that represents one of the largest foreign investments in the country's history. Company officials said they are aiming to reach 1,500 employees at the Taylor plant just south of U.S. Highway 79 by the end of this year. The investment is in the tens of billions of dollar range.

"A key step in our progress is transitioning employees responsible for fabrication engineering, infrastructure and support operations from our Austin campus into the Taylor office building starting in November of last year," Michele Glaze, director of communications at Samsung Austin Semiconductor LLC, said in an email to the Austin Business Journal.

Samsung has been officially tied to Taylor, a city of about 17,000 people about 30 miles northeast of Austin, since 2022. While it initially planned to open the plant in 2024, the project encountered delays resulting from the massive construction effort, the cyclical nature of the semiconductor industry and the necessity of securing financial incentives to help offset the hefty investment costs… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Southeast Travis County will elect a new leader for the first time in decades. Here’s who’s running. (KUT)

For the first time in over 30 years, voters in Southeastern Travis County will decide on a new commissioner for their precinct.

The Travis County Precinct 4 Commissioner spot has been held by Margaret Gómez since 1995. Gómez, 81, announced last year that she would retire at the end of her term.

Now, four local Democrats are vying to oversee the precinct, which covers most of South and Southeast Austin to the borders of Hays, Caldwell and Bastrop counties. Precinct 4 has among the highest concentrations of Black and Hispanic residents and some of the lowest median household incomes in the county, according to the U.S. Census.

The promise of new leadership has energized residents in Far East Austin, who have long pushed for road improvements, water quality upgrades and more grocery stores and health clinics… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Austin airport marks expansion milestone as West Infill project adds 75,000 square feet (CBS Austin)

The Austin airport just passed a major milestone in its ongoing expansion program with a ribbon-cutting ceremony of the latest addition to the Barbara Jordan Terminal.

The West Infill project adds more than 75,000 square feet to the terminal across four levels, AUS says, and offers a new TSA Checkpoint to be opened on Feb. 23.

The airport also says that infrastructure upgrades will enhance airport security and make travelling through AUS more efficient.

Improvements include the Outbound Baggage Handling System, which has been in operation since December; additional ticketing counters; new airline space; new airport operational space; art and design enhancements; and upgraded infrastructure including an independent HVAC system, new elevators, and modernized mechanical, electrical, and IT systems… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ As Austin's office pipeline dries up, occupancy rates have almost nowhere to go but up (Austin Business Journal)

Elevated vacancy rates have dominated talk about Austin’s office market for the past few years, but with the development pipeline expected to be cleared by the end of 2026 and positive leasing momentum coming out of 2025, those rates could soon drop.

Commercial real estate firms Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. and CBRE Group Inc. reported vacancy rates of 26% and 25%, respectively, for Austin’s office market in the fourth quarter of 2025. The majority of the 1.7 million square feet of office space under construction — primarily Apple's northwest Austin campus and downtown Austin’s Waterline tower, according to JLL — are expected to be delivered by the end of year, and that means there could be an opportunity for market to stabilize as landlords continue to fill vacant office space before the next construction cycle begins, with downtown primed to benefit.

While vacancy rates remain high, coming out of 2025 “it just feels different than it has the last couple of years,” said Will Douglas, a senior managing director and co-lead at JLL’s Central Texas office. “People seem like they’re ready to get back to work, they’re ready to rock and roll.”… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Saudia Arabia taps Austin as its base camp for 2026 FIFA World Cup (Austin Business Journal)

Austin is not among the 16 cities hosting games during the 2026 FIFA World Cup, which takes place in the United States, Mexico and Canada this summer. But it will be serving as the base camp for one of the 48 qualifiers, marking another significant milestone as the city aims to buff up its standing as a major sports city.

Austin FC announced on Feb. 5 the Saudi Arabian Football Federation will temporarily reside and train at its facilities between its group stage matches against Uruguay on June 15 in Miami, Spain on June 21 in Atlanta and Cape Verde on June 26 in Houston. The full tournament runs from June 11 through July 19.

The SAFF – which played a CONCACAF Gold Cup match against the United States at Q2 Stadium last June – is among Asia's most successful teams. Nicknamed the Green Falcons, they have qualified for the World Cup in seven of the last nine tournaments. They upset Argentina in the group stage in 2022, before the Lionel Messi-led squad went on to win the tournament… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ San Marcos buys land for $1.7M to expand regional airport (Austin Business Journal)

The city of San Marcos is expanding the San Marcos Regional Airport after the booming city between Austin and San Antonio this month acquired 170 acres of federal land for about $1.7 million.

The U.S. General Services Administration on Feb. 5 announced the sale of the land to the city of San Marcos spread across two parcels in Caldwell County just east of the airport, along with 75 adjacent acres it sold last year to Texas State University. It's right near the AXIS Logistics Park that could go vertical this year.

It marks the continuing move of the federal government under the Trump administration to offload land, buildings and other properties to limit maintenance and other costs and stimulate local economics.

The acreage was previously owned by the U.S. Department of Labor. Texas State in March 2025 purchased a piece of the 197-acre northernmost property that has a cluster of buildings near William Pettis Road. San Marcos purchased the remainder of that property, along with a 48-acre southernmost undeveloped parcel, property records show… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ Trump's ICE crackdown will limit Texas job growth in 2026, Dallas Fed says (Houston Chronicle)

Texas should see modest employment growth in 2026, according to an annual forecast from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, although President Donald Trump’s ongoing immigration crackdown stifled job growth last year and is likely to remain a constraint. The Dallas Fed’s annual Texas Employment Forecast indicates the state will add about 154,600 jobs over the course of the year, an increase of 1.1%.

That comes after employment growth was essentially flat in 2025, when the state added just 10,700 jobs. All told, Texas has about 14.4 million people employed. “The immigration crackdown is really having an effect limiting labor supply,” Pia Orrenius, a labor economist and vice president of the Dallas Fed, said Friday at an economic outlook event where the forecast was released.

The Dallas Fed previously raised this concern in a report in October, which found that the Trump administration’s ramped-up immigration enforcement was making it harder for many Texas businesses to hire or retain foreign-born workers. “It’s almost more the chilling effect, than people actually leaving or being deported,” Orrenius said, adding: “This is actually impacting both unauthorized immigrants and legal immigrants.”

Several other factors help explain Texas’s tepid job growth last year, Orrenius said, and remain relevant as 2026 begins. The growth of artificial intelligence helped the state notch healthy productivity gains, for example, but those productivity gains likely suppressed hiring to some extent: “Firms can do more with fewer workers.” Low oil prices may also serve as a drag on growth this year, as they did in 2025. The Greater Houston Partnership said in its own employment forecast, released in December, that it expects the region’s oil and gas sector to shed about 3,200 jobs in 2026 even as it forecasts the region will add about 31,000 jobs overall. Census Bureau data released earlier this month found that state population grew by about 391,000 people in 2025, a decrease of about one-third compared to the prior year.

Orrenius said that, based on her own calculations, the state saw a steep drop in the number of domestic and international migrants who moved to Texas last year. She forecasts just 89,000 people will move to the state this year. That would be the slowest population growth Texas has seen in more than a decade and it would be a worrisome development for Texas, Orrenius suggested. The state has long experienced outsized economic growth alongside, and as a result of, outsized population growth… 🟪 (READ MORE)

✅ San Antonio Mayor Jones could face censure vote for allegedly yelling at council member (San Antonio Express-News)

City Council members are mulling over whether to reprimand Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones after she allegedly yelled and cursed at Councilwoman Sukh Kaur when the two stepped away from Thursday’s City Council meeting, according to three City Hall insiders familiar with the situation. The incident was the last straw for some members who have grown tired of Jones’ confrontational behavior with council members who have sided against her on high-profile votes, a source said. Jones got into an argument with Kaur in a private area in the Municipal Plaza Building that’s reserved for city staff, according to multiple City Hall sources who requested anonymity because they feared retribution for publicly discussing the matter. The area is adjacent to City Council Chambers, where the council meeting was underway.

Council was slated to vote on whether to allow the Bonham Exchange to remain open after the historic gay nightclub blew past an Oct. 1, 2023, deadline to install legally required fire sprinklers. Kaur was pushing for a resolution that would have given the Bonham Exchange until Feb. 1, 2027, to install sprinklers without having to cut its occupancy in half, as the San Antonio Fire Department had urged for months. Joan Duckworth, the club’s general manager and co-owner, said that limiting capacity to fewer than 300 people would make it impossible to keep the venue in business. Jones disagreed with the resolution that Kaur forced onto the meeting agenda with the support of Council members Teri Castillo and Jalen McKee-Rodriguez. The mayor brokered a last-minute deal to get Duckworth to comply with the city’s demands, rendering the three council members’ resolution moot.

Jones publicly committed Thursday to helping the club raise the $550,000 it needs to cover the costs of installing automatic fire sprinklers throughout the three-story venue. The city and the Bonham Exchange finalized a compliance agreement on Friday. The deal allows the club to continue operating, but with an occupancy limit of fewer than 300 people, among other safety precautions. Before taking up the Bonham Exchange issue during Thursday’s meeting, the mayor and City Council’s 10 members went into a closed-door executive session to discuss it. There, Kaur talked about her encounter with Jones, and Castillo asked City Attorney Andy Segovia about the possibility of calling a censure vote against the mayor, a source said… 🟪 (READ MORE)