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- BG Reads Weekend Edition (12.22.2024) (copy
BG Reads Weekend Edition (12.22.2024) (copy
🎄 BG Reads Weekend Edition (12.22.2024)
BG Reads Weekend Edition (12.22.2024)
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Top Clicks for the Week of December 16, 2024
🟪 Austin Transit Partnership approves $98M contract for delivery of Project Connect (Community Impact)
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WEEKEND NEWS
➡️ Texas is now home to 31 million people even as population growth slows (Texas Tribune)
Texas’ population surpassed 31 million people within the last year as the state added more residents than any other place in the country, estimates released Thursday by the U.S. Census Bureau show.
However, the number of people who moved from other parts of the country slowed.
Texas added 562,941 residents between July 2023 and July 2024, census estimates show — ahead of Florida and California. That growth brought the state’s total population to 31,290,831.
The state didn’t add residents as quickly as it did the previous year, but the rate of its population growth — 1.8% — was still the third-highest in the country behind Florida and the District of Columbia… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Here's when (and who) the Texas Longhorns will play in the College Football Playoff quarterfinal round (WFAA)
The Eyes of Texas are on the quarterfinals.
With their first ever CFP win after defeating ACC champion Clemson in Austin, the Texas Longhorns will move on to the next round and face the champion of the conference it just left.
The Texas Longhorns will face the Big 12 champion Arizona State in the quarterfinal round of the CFP. Here is a look at when and where they'll play… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Samsung finalizes CHIPS Act incentive; scope of factory less than previously announced (Austin Business Journal)
Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd. has finalized the incentive it will get through the federal CHIPS and Science Act, although the company won't be making as big of an investment in Taylor as what was proclaimed when dignitaries descended on the small town to announce a preliminary CHIPS award earlier this year.
The company plans to invest $37 billion at its sites in Taylor and North Austin, down from initial projections of $45 billion but still a huge sum that will rank among the largest investments in U.S. history.
The Biden-Harris administration and the U.S. Department of Commerce on Dec. 20 awarded the South Korea-based electronics giant more than $4.7 billion in direct funding, which is lower than the $6.4 billion the company was earmarked to get when a memorandum of understanding was signed earlier this year. The department will distribute the funds based on Samsung’s completion of project milestones… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Austin Chamber selects board leaders for next 2 years (Austin Business Journal)
One of the region's top business advocacy groups has named its leadership for the next two years.
The Austin Chamber of Commerce announced that Mark Ramseur, managing principal of Pape-Dawson Engineering, will serve as 2025 board chair and Denise Davis, a founder and partner at Davis Kaufman PLLC, will serve as 2025 chair-elect and 2026 board chair. Both of their terms begin Jan. 1.
The board chair helps oversee the organization's general functions, works to increase its partnerships with local businesses and serves as an advocate for sustainable growth policies and solutions to challenges impacting the local business community.
The board chair also picks the Austinite of the Year, an honor given annually to an individual in the community viewed as instrumental to making Austin a better place to work and live.
This year, current Chair Rudy Garza, who is president and CEO of GarzaEMC, picked University of Texas’ Athletic Director Chris Del Conte as 2024 Austinite of the year.
Ramseur, the incoming board chair, has been part of the Austin Chamber’s board since 2018 and has helped with strategic initiatives and community outreach… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Tens of thousands of Travis County homeowners will need to verify property tax breaks (KUT)
The office that oversees tax breaks and property values in Travis County is now beginning to come into compliance with a 2023 law requiring counties to check homeowners’ claims to tax exemptions.
Senate Bill 1801, which became law last year, requires central appraisal districts throughout the state to review homeowners’ claims to property tax exemptions. They must do these reviews every five years.
Exemptions let homeowners subtract a portion of their home values from the amount that is taxed by cities, counties and other entities that collect taxes. The most common is what’s called a homestead exemption, where someone receives a tax break for living in the home they own.
In early November, the Travis Central Appraisal District began mailing notices out to roughly 18,000 homeowners who, according to property documents, may no longer qualify for a homestead exemption. This was the first batch of notifications. The office will send them out in phases and is starting with homeowners who first claimed exemptions between 1970 and 2009… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
➡️ Next phases of development, new name announced for SE Austin's Velocity (Austin Business Journal)
The next phases of development and a name change have been announced for Southeast Austin’s Velocity project.
As part of an effort to draw retailers, restaurants and entertainment options, the 314-acre, mixed-used project is being renamed The Row, with a new overall aesthetic design for the district to be revealed soon, according to an announcement.
Developed by Austin- and Dallas-based Presidium, The Row is located east of Austin-Bergstrom International Airport in a rapidly growing section of the metro.
Once complete, it will add thousands of homes, retail space, hotels and about 100 acres of green space to Southeast Austin. It has entitlements for around seven million square feet of space — about the size of seven Lakeline Malls.
Construction is already underway on The Row’s first project: a 307-unit apartment complex called Del Via. The next phases of development will center around restaurants and retail space, according to the announcement.
Presidium is co-developing the retail phases with California-based PentaGrowth Capital, a real estate private equity firm and subsidiary of Biolink Capital…
➡️ Austin establishes separate fund for emerging musicians in response to criticisms (KUT)
The City of Austin is reworking a grant program that provides millions of dollars in public assistance to struggling musicians after a chorus of concern from artists earlier this year.
Austin's Live Music Fund saw a record number of applicants in 2024, and with it hundreds of rejections from artists looking for city assistance. More than a thousand people applied to the grant program, and more than $4.5 million was doled out to nearly 140 recipients. But artists complained the selection and application process was opaque. Longtime artists told KUT earlier this year they weren’t given proper explanation for why their pitches weren’t selected — and they felt they were passed over in favor of younger artists.
Now, the city appears to be addressing that feedback for 2025, according to the Economic Development Department, which manages the program… 🟪 (LINK TO FULL STORY)
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