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Vacancies for industrial buildings in the greater Austin region are near the highest levels of any place in the country. It could be that companies thinking of moving to Austin aren’t finding buildings big enough to accommodate them.
Spring fever, oak and mold pollen, and now another strain of coronavirus — all about the latest variant and the complications it brings.
Half a century ago incarcerated Texans formed bands and recorded their music inside of state prisons. That music was shared recently with a wider audience.
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The full transcript of this episode of Austin Signal is available on the KUT & KUTX Studio website. The transcript is also available as subtitles or captions on some podcast apps.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:08] Vacancies for industrial buildings in the greater Austin region are near the highest levels of any place in the country, no matter which data you’re looking at. It could be that prospective companies thinking of moving to Austin aren’t finding buildings that are big enough to accommodate them. More about the status of the market and spring fever, oak and mold pollen, and now another strain of coronavirus. We’re going to talk about this latest variant and the complications it brings with it. That is coming up on today’s show.
KUT Announcer: Laurie Gallardo [00:00:34] The Austin Signal is a production of KUT News, hosted by Jerry Quijano.
Jerry Quijano [00:00:40] Plus, half a century ago, incarcerated Texans formed bands and recorded their music inside state prisons. Some of that music was shared recently with a wider audience, and today we’re going to share some of it with you. That is coming up next. It is right here on Austin Signal. Thank you for tuning in. Howdy out there, you are tuned in to Austin Signal. It’s Tuesday, April 7th. I’m your host, Jerry Kiechanel. Thank you for making us part of your afternoon. Happening today here in Austin, the Texas State Board of Education is discussing a new social studies curriculum for K through 12. It’s based on a new framework that emphasizes Texas and US history and de-emphasizes world history. Critics and educators say the new curricula is too much for a single school year. It focuses on Christian religion and limits understanding of the world. The board is set to take a final vote in June. The curriculum would go into effect in 2030. The state board is also discussing a new reading list for grades K through 12. KUT’s Greta Diaz Gonzalez Vazquez is following that story. We’ll have more for you later here on KUT News. Vacancies for industrial buildings in Austin and the surrounding region are near the highest levels across the country. That’s no matter whose data you’re looking at. It could be possible, though, that prospective companies aren’t finding enough of the space that they need in the Austin area to make things work for them. For more about that, we are speaking with Justin Sayers. He’s a senior staff writer with the Austin Business Journal. Thank you for your time, Justin.
Justin Sayers [00:02:23] Thank you so much for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:02:25] So let’s talk first about those vacancy levels, or where are they at, and generally what size are these buildings that we’re talking about.
Justin Sayers [00:02:30] Yeah, so it’s always important to put these numbers into context. Yes, they are some of the highest in the country. But when you look at a market like Austin, we are still a very small industrial market. We have one-tenth the size of what a Dallas has. So when one lease gets signed here, those numbers go down. Despite that, what happened was in 2020 in the boom, people rushed to meet the demand of the people moving here. So they built a ton of buildings and You know, it takes a while to build buildings, so those are all coming online right now.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:02] Okay, so let’s say, can you just define for me what is a speculative building, and why would developers make these spaces even bigger even though there are these vacancy numbers that we’re seeing right now?
Justin Sayers [00:03:13] Yeah. So when it comes to development, time is money. So what developers will do is they will build buildings without a tenant in mind, almost like you build an apartment without tenants in there. So they build these buildings, hoping to have them ready to lease to a company that’s looking and having that building built already is great for a company rather than doing a build to suit or building it on your own. So that’s what it means by speculative.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:40] Okay, how much space is necessary to attract these bigger size companies?
Justin Sayers [00:03:45] So that’s the really interesting thing and what our story covered. So when I moved here five years ago, the sweet spot and all the companies that we’re looking were these 100 to 200,000 square foot leases.
Jerry Quijano [00:03:57] Which it sounds like we have a bunch of right now, right? Exactly.
Justin Sayers [00:03:59] And we have a ton, when you look at the vacancy numbers, those are the highest vacancy is that range. But what we’re starting to see is that developers are building bigger. So they’re building buildings that are like half a million square feet to try and attract these really large tenants, say the Teslas or the Samsungs and their suppliers. And what they’re finding is when they put these on the market, they don’t seem to very long.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:27] As in they don’t stay vacant for long? Exactly.
Justin Sayers [00:04:29] So, yeah, we went through just to pull it because one developer just broke ground on a 682,000 square foot building, which is the largest we’ve ever seen in the market.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:40] Okay.
Justin Sayers [00:04:41] But what we did was we looked at all the buildings that were 400 or bigger built speculatively and at least half of them were leased within a year of finishing or even while they were still in development.
Jerry Quijano [00:04:51] Okay, can you tell us more about some examples of these larger scale spec builds here in Austin and perhaps what kind of jobs they have brought to the area?
Justin Sayers [00:04:59] Yeah, so a big example is down in Kyle. Again, five years ago, Kyle was still a growing city. It didn’t have a lot of employers. Developer came in, built a 1.4 million square foot industrial park that had one of these large buildings. Tesla came in and leased the whole thing. We don’t have exact numbers on how many people are working there, because Tesla is very secretive about that, but it’s believed to be in the well into the hundreds. Another example, up in Georgetown, there’s a company called ZT Systems that makes pieces for the data center industry. They took one building that was over 400,000 square feet, bought it. They’re already employing hundreds there. Just last week, right before a story came out, they actually leased another one of these speculative buildings. So again, that’s hundreds of employees in manufacturing, warehousing, that type of industry.
Jerry Quijano [00:05:51] One thing that your story talks about is balancing the scale between the creation of these projects of such large size. You obviously can’t just have hundreds of these 700, 800,000 square foot projects popping up. But how great is the demand for buildings of this size in the Austin area according to the data that you’ve been looking at.
Justin Sayers [00:06:11] Yeah. So we talked to a lot of brokers and these are the guys, you know, either representing companies or representing the developers and the landlords and trying to lease these. They have said that there is a very large uptick in, you, know, companies that are looking for buildings of these size and that Austin has lost out on a lot these projects. One broker we talked to said he himself lost three projects just to Dallas last year because they had these buildings. So, you know, having buildings of these size ready, built. You know, permitted is attractive for a company that is trying to move fast and trying to get in there as fast as possible. So it’s very possible. I mean, we have reported a big one that’s looking around Blue Origin, you know Jeff Bezos’ space company. So, you know companies like that, you make yourself more attractive when you have something that works for them rather than a Houston, Dallas, San Antonio or even out of state where they can find that and move fast on.
Jerry Quijano [00:07:10] So it sounds, according to your story, like even though these vacancy numbers that we’re seeing in industrial buildings in Austin are high and high across the nation, developers are still pretty excited about the potential of buildings here in Austin, correct?
Justin Sayers [00:07:24] Definitely. I don’t think, I mean, these numbers have been pretty elevated for the last couple years. I’ve not spoken to one broker who is concerned, because at the end of the day, you know, one of these leases get signed, that number goes down. That being said, they’re still very hesitant to put more of those 100 to 200 to 300,000 square foot buildings on the market because those do have high vacancy, but they’re getting a little more creative, whether that’s bigger buildings. Sometimes smaller buildings that are more flexible or even going to areas that really weren’t in demand before like the Cedar Park Leander area We’ve seen a few groundbreaking scheduled on projects that have That were sitting waiting and now they’re breaking ground in that area because they’re starting to see better leasing numbers in those pockets
Jerry Quijano [00:08:12] Okay, we have been speaking with Justin Sayers. He’s a senior staff writer with the Austin Business Journal. We’re gonna have a link to his latest story in today’s show notes. Thank you for your time, Justin.
Justin Sayers [00:08:21] Yeah, thanks you so much for having me.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:29] Well, following the holidays, you might know a few people who have the sniffles right now, maybe you’re one of them. Maybe you’re wondering, is this COVID? Is it allergies or the flu? Well, you’re not alone, and we’ll have more on that in a second. But when it comes to COVID, there’s a new strain out, nicknamed the cicada strain, that has folks a little worried. For more, we are talking with KUT’s healthcare reporter, Olivia Aldridge. She’s with us in the studio. Howdy, Olivia.
Olivia Aldridge [00:08:54] Hi, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:08:55] So tell us more about this Cicada COVID variant.
Olivia Aldridge [00:08:59] Well, the technical name for this variant is BA32. It was nicknamed cicada basically because the sort of parent variant of BA32 was kind of underground for years. We weren’t really seeing it spread, but much like cicada, the insect reemerges after a few years. That’s kind of what’s happened here. It was first detected in South Africa in late 2024. It’s been circulating a little bit globally since then, and now it’s in the US as well. And epidemiologists are watching it to kind of see if it becomes dominant here.
Jerry Quijano [00:09:31] What are the complications associated with this variant?
Olivia Aldridge [00:09:34] It looks so far like it produces similar symptoms to other COVID variants, you know, sore throat, cough, fever, body aches and all, all that good stuff. But what’s kind of piqued people’s interest about cicada is that it’s highly mutated and in early studies, it seems that it is better at evading antibodies and maybe getting around our current COVID vaccines. So that’s a potential concern. Some early data also shows that kids are more susceptible to it.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:01] Okay, do we have any like data, any numbers on the Cicada variant here in Central Texas?
Olivia Aldridge [00:10:08] Nationwide, I can tell you that right now it’s just about 7% of COVID cases based on the evidence that the CDC has from studying wastewater. So you know, it’s still it’s still relatively few cases. It’s been seen in Texas and a bunch of other states, but there are more dominant strains out there for sure. So right now, it’s just something they’re watching to kind of see what happens.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:30] What about COVID numbers overall?
Olivia Aldridge [00:10:33] I mean, it’s still out there. COVID’s always kind of around to some degree, even if we’re not experiencing a big surge. But right now the data is not really showing that we’re in a surge. Wastewater levels are pretty low in Texas and in Travis County specifically, higher in Hayes County. So we’ll see what happens there, but statewide hospitalizations, ER visits from COVID are kind of trending down.
Jerry Quijano [00:10:55] Okay, it seems like every year since 2020, we have been talking about a rough season for respiratory illnesses has this spring been similar for that.
Olivia Aldridge [00:11:05] Yeah, we’re kind of coming out now of the traditional winter respiratory virus season. There wasn’t the biggest spike in COVID this year, but it was around. And there was a pretty tough flu strain this year. One doctor that I spoke with told me that she felt this season lasted a bit longer than usual and she saw a real mix of COVID, flu, RSV, even strep in her clinic. And then of course, this time of year, it can be kind of tough to tell because allergies can also start to complicate things and it’s… You know, a question as to whether you have Cedar fever or it’s a virus getting you down.
Jerry Quijano [00:11:38] Yeah, and as we’ve heard from personal experiences around the offices, sometimes the early days aren’t quite indicative of what comes later in these illnesses, so it is even harder to really have a sense of detection. Can you just remind us before you get out of here how folks can prevent getting sick and how maybe people will know when it’s progressing past something that’s just kind of your regular normal sickness?
Olivia Aldridge [00:12:04] Yeah, I mean, the advice for not getting sick is it’s stayed the same. You stay up to date for vaccines for COVID, wash your hands, take it seriously if you know you were around someone who was sick. That’s a good reason to get tested if you start to feel symptoms. And then if you have a fever or body ache, something like that, the doctors I spoke to said that’s usually a strong sign that what you’re dealing with is probably not allergies.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:28] All right, we have been speaking with Olivia Aldridge. She is QUT’s healthcare reporter. Thanks for coming back on the show, Olivia.
Olivia Aldridge [00:12:34] Thanks, Jerry.
Jerry Quijano [00:12:35] And thank you out there for spending part of your Tuesday here with us. We have more Austin Signal coming up after this break. This is Austin Signal, welcome back.
Singer [00:13:02] Woke up this morning and I feel so good
Jerry Quijano [00:13:10] Morgan White recorded the song Come Home while in the Wynn Unit Band. It was composed entirely of prisoners, just one of many Texas prison bands that played and recorded music during the 1970s. The history of these bands recently caught the attention of Maurice Schma, Texas-based staff writer at The Marshall Project. He and Morgan White spoke with Texas Standard’s David Brown about the music and the history behind it.
David Brown [00:13:36] Man, you’ve got some pipes on you. My goodness gracious. Were you at one time a professional singer or no?
Morgan White [00:13:45] Yes, you know, I did start doing music when I was probably 14, 15 years old.
David Brown [00:13:51] You were telling me you grew up in a temple, yeah, yeah. Yeah, mm-hmm. Now, what about that song, Come Home? That’s, it’s got a great melody to it.
Morgan White [00:14:00] Well, I was having a conversation with a friend of mine who was also incarcerated at that time and he was telling me about a situation he was having with his girlfriend and the song kind of grew out of our conversation.
David Brown [00:14:15] So you wrote that song? Yes. And y’all recorded it around 1980. What was that about? Did you have access to recording equipment and all that?
Morgan White [00:14:27] Well yes we did we had a uh… Actually had a studio at the wind unit uh… That had been built uh… Sometime in the late seventy and uh… I was a clerk uh… In the music department got named tom miller who was our music director uh… Was the guy who helped write the arrangement and the trumpet player on that particular cut that you heard.
David Brown [00:14:51] Gee whiz, how many songs did you record while you were locked up in Texas?
Morgan White [00:14:58] Quite a few, I’m not sure, I can’t tell you a particular number, because it actually started I guess in the 60s when I first went to prison, 1961, and I guess the first time I was on The recording was probably around 65.
David Brown [00:15:15] That’s remarkable to me because I understand there were a lot of prison reform efforts in the 70s and they began introducing things that were sort of vocational related so that people would have an opportunity to record. The fact that you were recording in a Texas lockup as early as 1965 kind of blows my mind. I won’t lie to you. They had a studio back then?
Morgan White [00:15:39] No they didn’t really have a studio it was kind of a it was kind of accrued arrangement that they had to set up with we had a band director at that time named bo cruz uh that was from the hospital area he was a trombone player but he was our musical director and we kind of set up on stage in what was the old library at the walls unit Where where everything was situated at that time? The education department and the coastal music department came out of the education department. And so the old library was where the stage and the auditorium was and they kind of set up mics on stage and we recorded that way. It wasn’t as good as what you’re hearing now because we actually had a better set up on the win.
David Brown [00:16:31] I want to bring in Maurice Shema, who’s a writer with The Marshall Project, and Maurice, we picked up on this as a result of your reporting, and frankly stunned by the idea that there would be all of these recordings, what, floating out there somewhere? What what what what happened to these recordings and and how many are there out there?
Maurice Schma [00:16:55] So there’s about 10 records. And I found the first one new to me, you know, about 10 years ago, when I was just surfing on eBay. I mean, I think I had a Google alert related to Texas prisons since most of my day job is reporting on, you now, prisons today. So I found this record, the cover of it has a man being kind of flung off a horse. And I came to learn that these bands, in addition to recording these albums, would also perform at the Texas prison rodeo, which was held every year in Huntsville until about 1986. Tens of thousands of Texans from around the state would gather there and watch the incarcerated people do rodeo events, but then also play in these bands. And then I just kind of put that record on a shelf that collected dust. I kind of slowly learned that there was a bunch of prison bands around the country that were allowed to record. One of them in Pennsylvania even opened for Stevie Wonder at one point. So. Kind of learn this history, got really immersed as a kind of rabbit hole that you go down. And then I knew that there were these other Texas albums and you’d see references to them online, but it was a little bit of a white whale just knowing that this music was out there. And then, I just sort of one day on a whim put in a call to the Texas Prison Museum, which is in Huntsville, very close to where this rodeo took place. And they said, yeah, we’ve got all the albums. I think one of the the men who worked in the prison that that Morgan mentioned uh… You know just had them at his house and i probably donated at some point to this museum and they said you can come and digitize them so so i did i took a turntable into the museum and just plugged it into my laptop uh… Got it set up and and ripped all of the vinyl and then you know now we’re putting it online at the marshall project
David Brown [00:18:38] Could you connect this story with your Marshall project work? What does a Marshall project do?
Maurice Schma [00:18:43] Sure. So the Marshall Project is a nonprofit news organization that covers the American criminal justice system. A lot of what we do is investigative reporting, and I have been a journalist covering prisons and courts for about the last 10 years. I see reporting on this music as kind of part of making an argument that prisons can be places where people can engage their creative and spiritual and their vocational selves to try to kind work through issues so that when they come out of prison, they’re less likely to return. And it seems like from this music, in the 70s and 80s, there was kind of more of that, more of a message of these people are your neighbors and they’re gonna come home. And that’s kind of the message that I hope this music brings to people. We’re gonna keep covering it in a weekly newsletter where I’m gonna be publishing basically one song a week that was recorded in a prison. Some of it is from a very long time ago, 1930s, 40s. Some of it is. Recent. There are nonprofits, you know, that with small music programs in prisons today across the country. So if you check out the Marshall Project website, you can continue to follow along as I put out this music.
David Brown [00:19:52] And these recordings, at least at one time, what, were they sold at the rodeo or something?
Maurice Schma [00:19:57] That’s my understanding. Yeah, they were sold at the rodeo. And on the back of the albums, it says, you know, these were sold to fund rehabilitative programs for the people inside. You can sort of wonder how much of that money really went to that purpose, right? I mean, I have not gone deep on the records, but, but it suggests that there was, you know, roughly 3000 sold every weekend in October as the rodeos took place in Huntsville.
David Brown [00:20:24] So there are probably some of these incredibly rare records just floating out there in the collections of Texans somewhere. I want to hear a little bit more of this music. This is another song featuring Morgan White. This time Morgan’s playing drums. This is 11 by 7 and this is one of those tracks produced in 1965. Let’s listen. Holy cow. Morgan, you didn’t tell us you were a drummer too.
Morgan White [00:21:16] Well, yeah, that was my first love, my first instrument that I started out playing years and years ago. That group was a jazz group. The saxophone player that you would listen to was named Carmen Scaleri. He was originally from New Jersey and studied with Charlie Parker back in the day. We had a guitar player named Jerry Taylor who was from Arizona. I played drums and, of course, we had a bass player that was originally from Vermont, Texas, but he had been too long, and I guess he got busted when he moved back to Texas from Las Vegas. He had worked as a musician in Las Vegas. He was a bass-player. So, yeah, we were doing radio shows, TV shows. 7X11 came out of a show that we used to do in Houston on Channel 11 at 7 o’clock. It was like a morning show. It advertised I rodeo.
Jerry Quijano [00:22:16] That was the voice of Morgan White, a former Texas prison band musician who still sings at the church he attends outside Seattle. He was joined by Maurice Shemagh, a staff writer for The Marshall Project based here in Austin. They were talking with Texas Standards’ David Brown, and we’re gonna have a link to a much longer version of their conversation and links to more songs recorded in Texas prisons in the podcast, Show Notes. That is it for today’s show. There’s more from us at kut.org slash signal. Reina Sevilla is our technical director, Kristen Cabrera is our managing producer, and special thanks to Rene Chavez for his help today. I’m your host, Jerry Quijano. We’ll talk to you tomorrow.
This transcript was transcribed by AI, and lightly edited by a human. Accuracy may vary. This text may be revised in the future.
