Partnership Members Making News in December

• Airbnb invests over $1 million in Houston, which is its largest commitment to a FIFA host city ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup to fund local initiatives that strengthen the community and ensure lasting benefits from the event. The investment will primarily support the development of a 14-mile “Green Corridor” sustainable transit loop connecting major venues, and the “Grow the Game” program, which will increase youth access to soccer by renovating fields, launching clinics, and providing free equipment.
• Aldine Independent School District commences construction on two major facilities funded by its voter-approved $1.8 billion bond: a complete, 226,000-square-foot modernization of Aldine Middle School and a new, 100,000-square-foot Lane School Campus designed specifically for students with special needs. Both schools are projected to open in fall 2028.
• Downtown Houston is receiving a major economic development lift with a $500,000 incentive approved by the Downtown Redevelopment Authority to attract a full-service grocery retailer, Henderson & Kane General Store. This new 5,000-square-foot market, grocery, and restaurant is considered an urgent necessity for Downtown Houston as economic leaders have struggled to provide a walkable grocery option for the expanding residential population. Scheduled to open ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup, the store aims to solidify Downtown Houston’s status as a true residential neighborhood by providing essential, quality provisions.
• Fervo Energy has successfully closed an oversubscribed $462 million Series E funding round led by B Capital to accelerate the development of its flagship Cape Station project in Utah. The financing, which includes participation from Google and Mitsui & Co., will support Fervo’s mission to provide 24/7 carbon-free power to the grid, with Cape Station slated to deliver its first 100 megawatts by 2026 and reach a total capacity of 500 megawatts by 2028. This investment follows a landmark year for the company, including a major power purchase agreement with Shell and receiving “Scaleup of the Year” honors at the 2025 Houston Innovation Awards, further solidifying Houston’s role as a global hub for the energy transition and next-generation geothermal technology.
• Port of Houston is the core factor driving the $57.5 million investment by East Coast Warehouse & Distribution, a temperature-controlled logistics provider, to establish its first Texas operation in Baytown. The new 321,440-square-foot facility is strategically located just 14 to 18 miles from the Port’s major container terminals.
• The Houston-based midstream company Targa Resources Corp. is acquiring Stakeholder Midstream, LLC for $1.25 billion to expand its infrastructure, including pipelines and natural gas processing, in the Permian Basin. This acquisition supports the ongoing pipeline boom driven by rising natural gas demand from LNG terminals and new industrial energy needs.
• Sam Houston State University is undertaking a $13.5 million renovation of The Woodlands Center to accommodate the substantial growth of its nursing school. The project will reconfigure the building’s interior to increase nursing enrollment capacity from 380 to 720 students by 2026, adding new skills labs, simulation suites, and standardized patient rooms to support modern teaching styles amid ongoing workforce shortages in the nursing field. The university also recently began construction on the $40 million Active Learning Center at its main Huntsville campus, a 46,421-square-foot facility designed to enhance hands-on, flexible instruction across various academic disciplines, slated for completion in February 2027.

Education

• Alvin Community College receives accreditation from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges for two new Associate of Applied Science degree programs, with classes slated to begin in fall 2026. The new offerings include degrees in Integrated Technology (focused on IT infrastructure, network administration, and software development) and Marketing, Advertising and Sales (covering e-commerce, digital advertising, and public relations).
• The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo has committed a record $30 million toward educational programming and scholarships for the 2026 season, marking its highest year-over-year increase in over a decade. This total commitment includes roughly $15 million in scholarships, $11 million for junior show exhibitors, and $3.4 million in educational grants. A significant portion of the increase comes from boosting guaranteed premiums for livestock show exhibitors and introducing the new Area Go-Texan Vocational Scholarship (awarding $6,000) to support career readiness and trade industries for students outside traditional four-year pathways.
• Texas A&M University is investing $25 million into a hiring initiative called “Foundation for Good” to hire 167 new tenure and tenure-track faculty members over the next two years. This effort is aimed at keeping pace with the university’s booming enrollment, which reached about 81,000 students in Fall 2025, and addressing a decade of enrollment growth that strained the student-faculty ratio, which averaged above 23:1 in 2023. The majority of the new hires will be in the College of Engineering and the College of Arts and Sciences.
• Texas A&M University at Galveston received a significant boost to its maritime programs with a $300,000 scholarship endowment from the Galveston Wharves (Port of Galveston). The endowment will provide $3,000 annual scholarships to four undergraduate students in maritime-related degrees, addressing the need for skilled professionals in the growing Gulf Coast maritime economy. This funding arrives as the university actively prepares to support a potential boom in regional shipbuilding, including a $1 billion investment by shipbuilder Davie, and is considering adding shipbuilding-specific courses to meet the rising demand for mariners and engineers.
• The Energy Transition Institute (ETI) at University of Houston launched the Energy in Action Seminar Series to focus on the intersection of the energy industry and digitization trends, particularly Artificial Intelligence (AI). The series is explicitly designed to “build a strong network in the Greater Houston energy ecosystem” by bringing together professionals and researchers. The roster of featured speakers includes senior leaders from global corporations such as Google Cloud, Shell, The Lubrizol Corporation, and Honeywell Process Automation.
• University of Houston has received a $2.67 million gift from the estate of Dr. William A. Gibson to expand its addiction research and combat the national opioid epidemic. This bequest, made in memory of Gibson’s son, Michael, establishes the Michael Conner Gibson Endowed Professorship in Psychology and a research endowment within the College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences. The funding bolsters the existing Michael C. Gibson Addiction Research Program, which notably developed a fentanyl vaccine designed to prevent relapse by blocking the drug’s effects on the brain.

Energy Transition

• CenterPoint Energy joined forces with NVIDIA and Palantir to launch “Chain Reaction,” an AI-driven software initiative designed to accelerate the buildout of American energy infrastructure and stabilize the power grid. As a founding partner and the initiative’s first major utility customer, CenterPoint is deploying the platform to manage the massive “speed-to-power” challenges posed by a projected 50% increase in regional energy demand over the next five years. By integrating Palantir’s operating system with NVIDIA’s accelerated computing stack, the initiative aims to solve critical bottlenecks in permitting, supply chain logistics, and grid reliability, effectively bridging the gap between aging utility systems and the gigawatt-scale power requirements of the AI revolution.
• The Public Utility Commission of Texas (PUCT) approved Entergy Texas’ Cypress to Legend 500-kV transmission line, a 41-mile project spanning Hardin and Jefferson counties. Estimated to cost $398.7 million, this project is designed to address a projected 40% load growth in the “Golden Triangle” region over the next five years, fueled by significant industrial expansion and residential development. The decision marks the completion of all major project approvals Entergy Texas planned for 2025 under its long-term “STEP Ahead” plan (Southeast Texas Energy Plan), which also includes the recently authorized Southline-Jacinto line and the 145-mile SETEX project. By securing these approvals along with a $200 million Texas Energy Fund grant, Entergy Texas aims to enhance grid reliability and weather resilience for its 524,000 customers while supporting regional job creation and keeping rates affordable.
• Exxon Mobil Corp. expects to reach a Final Investment Decision (FID) by the end of 2026 on its first data center power project. The supermajor is focused on partnering with power producers and large tech companies to provide decarbonized power by leveraging its extensive Gulf Coast carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) infrastructure. This strategy involves supplying net-zero gas from the Permian Basin to a power plant, capturing the emissions, and integrating the components. Separately, Exxon updated its corporate plan through 2030, raising its outlook for earnings and cash flow growth by $5 billion each (to $25 billion and $35 billion, respectively) without increasing capital spending. The company also projects generating roughly $145 billion in cumulative surplus cash flow over the next five years.

Health Care

• Baylor College of Medicine’s Center for Precision Medicine Models has been awarded a $10 million, five-year grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) to advance its research into rare genetic diseases. The center creates customized cell, fly, and mouse models that mimic specific genetic variations found in patients to better understand disease mechanisms and test potential treatments. Since its founding in 2020, the initiative has already produced over 200 precision models and utilized an online portal to allow families and physicians to nominate variants for study. This new round of funding will enable the center to expand its focus to more complex diseases and integrate multidisciplinary expertise in bioinformatics and animal modeling to accelerate the path to personalized patient care.
• Menninger Clinic joins Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas (BCBSTX) as an in-network provider, a major step in expanding access to its nationally ranked psychiatric services. This new agreement allows BCBS members to access a full continuum of evidence-based mental health care—including inpatient, residential, and outpatient programs—without the heavy financial burden of out-of-network costs. By integrating with major insurers like BCBS, along with existing partners such as UnitedHealthcare and Aetna, the clinic seeks to remove long-standing affordability barriers for families in Houston and across the country.
• St. Luke’s Health partners with Tennessee-based Lifepoint Rehabilitation to construct its first freestanding inpatient rehabilitation facility in Houston. The new 58,000-square-foot facility, which will house 40 patient rooms and employ nearly 100 rehabilitation professionals, will be located on the campus of St. Luke’s Health Springwoods Village Hospital in the City Place master-planned community. Construction is set to begin in early 2026, with the facility expected to open in Spring 2027.

Innovation

• Rice University launches the new Amyloid Mechanism and Disease Center, which will operate as the neuroscience branch of the recently established Rice Brain Institute. The center aims to uncover the molecular roots of neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, by studying how amyloid proteins damage brain cells. This major research initiative is strongly supported by and plans to collaborate with the Texas Medical Center to ensure lab discoveries are effectively translated into clinical progress for patients across the region and beyond.
• University of Texas Medical Branch (UTMB), Rice University, and Memorial Hermann Health System launch “Project Metis” to establish the Houston-Galveston region as a global leader in brain health and the emerging “brain economy.” The project focuses on lifelong brain health through research, clinical excellence, and innovation.

Transportation

• George Bush Intercontinental Airport (IAH), managed by Houston Airport Systems, announced that ITA Airways will launch the Houston’s first-ever nonstop flight to Rome starting in May 2026. This new, historic route, which will initially operate three times weekly before expanding to five times weekly in June 2026, significantly strengthens Houston’s international ties and positions the city favorably ahead of the 2026 FIFA World Cup.