The Houston Signal

The Houston Signal 📍 Houston news, minus the noise
🚀 Building. Opening. Closing. Happenings.
📡 Get the weekly signal!
🤝 Partnered with Dustin B Sexson

08/27/2026

🔋 A Houston startup working on a chip that generates power without charging just landed an Air Force contract.

🧪 Casimir was founded by physicist and engineer Harold "Sonny" White, formerly of Johnson Space Center
🚀 He launched it through Limitless Space Institute, a Houston nonprofit co-founded by Kam Ghaffarian
⚛️ The tech captures electricity using the Casimir effect inside microscopic cavities, layered together to power devices for long stretches without degrading like a normal battery
💡 First chip, the MicroSparc, is targeted for 2028 at 1.5 watts, roughly a small rechargeable battery
🎖️ The Air Force Research Laboratory and SpaceWERX want something bigger: a 1-kilowatt solid-state generator White describes as a "Lego brick"
🏫 Submitted with Texas A&M, since the STTR program requires a research partner
💵 Dollar amount wasn't disclosed. Phase I contracts are typically several hundred thousand

The bigger picture: Casimir is one of nearly 100 Houston companies to receive an SBIR or STTR grant in the program's history, and 37 Houston companies got at least one last year. Other local names in that pool include Venus Aerospace, March Biosciences, and Helix Earth Technology.

White's take is that an early government contract is both money and a signal. He also notes companies can need 30 attempts before one lands.

If you had a power source that lasted for years, what would you put it in?

🏡 Dustin Sexson, REALTOR®️ Houston, Texas

📰 Source: Houston Business Journal

If you've seen the headlines about Houston-area officials getting raises, there are two separate things happening and th...
08/27/2026

If you've seen the headlines about Houston-area officials getting raises, there are two separate things happening and they're getting mixed together.

The city's raises already happened. They took effect in July — the first since 2013. What most coverage skips is that no one at City Hall voted for them. Houston's charter ties council and controller salary caps to what state district judges make. The Legislature raised judge pay, and Houston's ceiling rose automatically. Council maximum went from about $63,200 to $80,000. Mayor Whitmire declined the $300,000 available to him and still makes about $237,000.

Harris County is a different story, and it isn't finished. Commissioners approved $305,000 salaries for constables and five other countywide offices, but those don't take effect until the FY2027 budget is formally adopted. The public hearing and final vote are Sept. 17 — the same meeting where the property tax rate gets decided.

County Judge Lina Hidalgo, the four commissioners, the sheriff and the treasurer aren't getting increases. County Clerk Teneshia Hudspeth publicly declined hers.

Share this with someone who's been arguing about it with the wrong numbers.

🏡 Dustin Sexson, REALTOR®️ Houston, Texas

📰 Sources: Houston Chronicle, ABC13, Houston Public Media, Click2Houston, The Texan, Harris County OMB, National Taxpayers Union Foundation.

08/27/2026

📄 Texas just published the terms of Elon Musk's Terafab tax deal. The contract requires 10 jobs.

💰 $16.8 billion minimum investment in Grimes County
🧾 Signed Aug. 21 with the state, Anderson-Shiro CISD, and Iola ISD
👷 Contractual minimum: 10 jobs, average wage around $66,668
🏦 Also required: $20M invested by end of the first incentive year and a $21M performance bond
🏫 Property tax collection capped at 50% of valuation for 10 years

Now the other number. Tom Johnson of the Greater Brazos Partnership told the Houston Business Journal he expects 2,000+ jobs averaging over $150,000, and says companies set the legal floor low to avoid breaching a contract if the economy turns.

⚖️ For scale: Eli Lilly's $6.5B Houston plant is required to create 75 jobs and invest $200M in year one.

🗺️ Land is already moving. County records show Wit Tech LLC has taken 12 warranty deeds in Grimes County since June, and local sources told the HBJ that SpaceX is clearing land.

📅 Construction is still years out: 2029–2031 in Iola ISD, 2035–2036 in Anderson-Shiro.

The Houston piece is hiring. Johnson says 60–70% of the workforce would come from a 40–50 mile labor shed, and site selectors have been calling since the project went public.

Should a $16.8 billion project be required to create more than 10 jobs? 👇

🏡 Dustin Sexson, REALTOR®️ Houston, Texas

📰 Source: Houston Business Journal

08/26/2026

🧠 A Houston VA just became the first in the country to treat a veteran’s epilepsy with an MRI-guided laser instead of open brain surgery.

🏥 It happened at the Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center on Holcombe, in the Med Center
🎖️ The patient is Robert Lindemann, a former Army National Guard officer with repeated seizures
🔬 The alternative was a craniotomy that would have removed a large part of his right temporal lobe
📏 Instead: a 3.2 mm hole in the skull and a fiber-optic laser catheter
🖥️ Real-time MRI let the team monitor temperature and protect the surrounding brain
🏠 He was discharged two days later and said he felt great by day four

Academic medical centers had used this approach before. What’s new is that it happened inside the VA system, which could open the option to other veterans with focal epilepsy who qualify for surgery.

Houston built its reputation on medical firsts. This is a quiet one, and it’s a big one.

Do you know a veteran who’s been told open surgery was the only option?

🏡 Dustin Sexson, REALTOR®️ Houston, Texas

📰 Source: Houston Chronicle

08/26/2026

💰 Shell just listed its U.S. headquarters in the Energy Corridor, with bids reported to start around $325 million.

🏢 Nearly 1.5 million square feet at 150 N Dairy Ashford, along the Katy Freeway
📅 Shell has been on the Woodcreek campus since 1980
🔑 It’s a sale-leaseback: Shell would lease back a little over half for 15 years
📉 That puts 700,000+ sq ft of office space back on the market at once
📊 Energy Corridor vacancy was about 15% last quarter, versus nearly 23% downtown

Here’s the thing most people will miss. This isn’t a company running from Houston. Shell still has 6,000+ employees in Texas and says the city stays its U.S. base. It’s a company deciding it doesn’t need to own 1.5 million square feet to be here.

And west Houston office space has been holding up. Baker Hughes moved to 575 N Dairy Ashford. Fluor moved to Eldridge Place, which changed hands last week after occupancy climbed from about 71% in 2019 to 94% this year.

The question is who buys it, and what goes in the half Shell walks away from.

What would you put in 700,000 square feet on the Katy Freeway?

🏡 Dustin Sexson, REALTOR®️ Houston, Texas

📰 Source: Houston Chronicle

08/26/2026

🛒 A 200,000-square-foot shopping center is coming to the Grand Parkway near Spring, anchored by Sprouts.

Fidelis breaks ground next month on Grand Imperial Marketplace at Grand Parkway and Imperial Promenade Drive.

📋 Already signed: Sprouts, Marshalls, Ross, Burlington, Five Below, Planet Fitness
📐 About 120,000 sq ft leased before construction starts
🏗️ Full build could reach 200,000 sq ft of retail and restaurants
📅 Target opening: fall 2027
🏘️ Fidelis says residential growth is the biggest driver

The site was planned before Covid and shelved. What changed isn’t the retail market. It’s how many people now live out here.

Sprouts opened in Kingwood in April and Webster in May, with The Woodlands next month and Hedwig Village next year.

Where do you think the next wave of Houston growth actually lands?

🏡 Dustin Sexson, REALTOR®️ Houston, Texas

📰 Source: Houston Business Journal

08/26/2026

Another Flock license plate camera was found sawed off in Houston on Saturday, in the median of Studemont just south of I-10 near the Heights.

The Houston Chronicle reports it’s at least the fifth vandalized in the city in a month.

📍 At the end of July, four cameras in Old Braeswood were cut down with a heavy-duty saw, per a civic leader
🚔 HPD said it is not actively investigating the Studemont incident
📷 Flock cameras scan license plates and log vehicle make and model into a law enforcement database
🔢 In 2024, Houston’s then-police chief said the area had about 3,800 of them, leading the nation

Both sides, as reported:
👮 Police Chief Noe Diaz said Thursday that three cut-down cameras hampered efforts to identify a man accused of trying to lure a child into his car
🛑 Organizers held two anti-camera walks Saturday in the Galleria and East End, part of a national week of action against automated license plate readers
⚖️ Police in Pasadena, Baytown and Fort Bend County have all opened investigations into officers accused of misusing the technology

🗳️ Where it stands locally: Magnolia PD canceled its Flock contract. Hood County voted to unplug and cover its cameras. League City put a non-binding referendum on the Nov. 3 ballot. Harris County commissioners renewed their contract in May through June 2027.

Houston voters haven’t been asked. Should they be?

🏡 Dustin Sexson, REALTOR®️ Houston, Texas

📰 Source: Houston Chronicle, ABC13, Houston Public Media

08/25/2026

⚡ Houston-based Sage Geosystems just connected a geothermal energy storage project to the ERCOT grid.

📍 The system is in Christine, Texas, south of San Antonio, near San Miguel Electric Cooperative’s coal plant
🔌 It’s 3 megawatts and sold its first electricity in the second quarter
📈 More than 120 days of operating data is now feeding future projects
🤝 Sage has a production project in Nevada with Ormat and a 150-MW deal with Meta to support a data center
💰 Houston’s Fervo Energy went public this year in a $2.2 billion IPO

The Houston angle is the equipment. CEO Cindy Taff says the drilling rigs, pumps and well-servicing crews that built the oil business are the exact infrastructure geothermal needs to scale. One of Sage’s investors is Nabors Industries, a Houston drilling company.

Same rigs, different target. What does that make Houston in twenty years?

🏡 Dustin Sexson, REALTOR®️ Houston, Texas

📰 Source: Houston Business Journal

08/25/2026

🏚️ Houston opened applications Monday for home repair money tied to 2024’s Hurricane Beryl and the May derecho.

🔨 Up to $100,000 for repairs
🏗️ Up to $300,000 for a full reconstruction
👥 The city expects to serve 120 to 200 households, and projects 80% will need a rebuild
💵 $45 million is set aside, out of the $100 million City Council allocated to housing
📊 HUD counted 4,000 households with serious unmet needs and $229 million in repair costs

To qualify: the home must be inside Houston city limits, owner-occupied, and outside a designated floodway. Income limit is 80% of the citywide median, or $83,200 for a family of four.

Seniors, residents with disabilities and disabled veterans are prioritized. Previous FEMA money that didn’t cover everything doesn’t disqualify you.

📞 There’s no online application.
Call (832) 394-6200 to request a packet.

The city also plans in-person workshops.
Two years later, is your street still carrying storm damage nobody fixed?

🏡 Dustin Sexson, REALTOR®️ Houston, Texas

📰 Source: Houston Chronicle

🌘 Thursday night, roughly 94% of the moon slides into Earth’s shadow and turns copper red over Houston.🕘 Starts around 9...
08/25/2026

🌘 Thursday night, roughly 94% of the moon slides into Earth’s shadow and turns copper red over Houston.

🕘 Starts around 9:33 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 27
🔴 Peaks around 11:12 p.m., when the moon is deepest in Earth’s shadow
🕐 Ends just before 1 a.m. Friday
⏱️ About three and a half hours end to end
👀 No gear needed. It sits well above the horizon here

This is a deep partial eclipse, not a total one. Nowhere on Earth will the moon be fully covered, but almost all of it goes dark, leaving a thin bright sliver on the edge.

Rice University astronomer Pat Hartigan calls it the spectacle of the summer, and says the best moment is just before the peak, when the sunlit part narrows to a yellow crescent and the rest glows deep red.

🌍 The red comes from our own atmosphere filtering out blue light. Every sunrise and sunset on Earth, projected onto the moon at once.

📅 First deep partial lunar eclipse anywhere in the world since September 2024. Next one isn’t until 2028.

🌧️ The forecast currently shows scattered clouds and isolated storms. It’s August in Houston.

Where’s the best spot in this city to actually see the night sky?

🏡 Dustin Sexson, REALTOR®️ Houston, Texas

📰 Source: Houston Chronicle and Chron

Address

Houston, TX

Website

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when The Houston Signal posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Shortcuts

Share

Category