In this recorded September 2026 CREI Partners monthly meetup, host Wayne Courreges III outlines the investment thesis for the Bryan‑College Station (BCS) metro area, emphasizing the transformative impact of the TerraFab semiconductor complex and related aerospace initiatives. He begins with a brief overview of the meetup format and CREI Partners’ business model—raising capital, acquiring value‑add multifamily, office, retail, and hotel assets, executing business plans, and delivering returns. Courreges then presents a data‑driven portrait of BCS: strong 5‑year population growth (12%+, 311k residents), net domestic and international migration, rising wages that outpace inflation, low violent and property crime rates, and favorable cost‑of‑living factors compared to other college towns. The centerpiece is TerraFab, a $16.8 billion, 100 million‑sq‑ft semiconductor facility slated for Grimes County, projected to generate 4,900 construction jobs through 2036 and create thousands of permanent positions across multiple phases. He quantifies the expected ripple effects on housing demand, rental rates, and sub‑market growth (e.g., 44.7% growth in Navasota). Courreges also showcases CREI Partners’ current projects in the area—Colony Landing apartments (completion 2028), a 40k‑sq‑ft office‑retail component, a 113‑room SpringHill Suites hotel, and other multifamily, storage, and medical office assets across Texas, Alabama, and Louisiana. The presentation concludes with contact information, podcast and social media channels, and an invitation for investors to engage.
Chapters
All right, welcome to our monthly meetup. It is the 4th Monday of September, and we are talking about investing ahead of growth, the Bryan-College Station opportunity. We are going to be doing, you know, this is recorded. We're going to be getting a lot of this information out through our podcast and other information. But if you're not too familiar with our meetup, we meet on the 4th Monday of each month at 7 o'clock. Typically between 7 and 7:15, we always start off with networking, getting to know each other and sort of, you know, breaking the ice. And then at 7:15, we'll go into our presentation. A lot of times we'll have outside speakers, but I've been speaking a lot as well. And then at 7:50-ish, we'll open it up to Q&A and close it around 8 p.m. Central Time. So but we covered today's market where the operators are seeing pressure, so much information. Between finances, accountants, taxes, etc. So definitely check it out if you're interested. A little bit about myself. So we have about $100 million assets under management in Texas, Alabama, and Louisiana. Our primary area is the Texas Triangle. And for the, you know, 16 years prior to joining or starting CREI Partners, I was working with CBRE, a large commercial real estate investment company. So my background is all commercial real estate. This is really all I know. So I'm excited to share our information today with you on Bryan College Station. Also want to introduce Shelby. Shelby is our chief of staff and runs our investor relations program. So if you are investing or part of our sphere, you're definitely gonna get to know Shelby. She definitely helps make the experience a lot smoother and having that point of contact to Get to know what's going on with your investments, any investor portal issues, etc. She's there as well as support. So what we do is we'll raise money to buy assets, we'll acquire the value-add real estate, we will execute the business plan, distribute return to our investors, and implement the exit strategy. So in short, we are active investors. We are finding the deals, executing on those deals. And what we do is we buy deals with partners, and those partners in many cases are invest with us alongside us. And so that way we can all buy bigger properties than what we could if it was just ourselves. So our primary target is multifamily, but we also do office retail. We also have a hotel development along with a multifamily development as well. All right, so enough about us. Let's go into the TerraFab opportunity. So for those that may not know, this is in Bryan-College Station area. In Grimes County. So this is about 20 miles away from Bryan-College Station. And so there's going to be a lot of regional growth, a lot of information that I'm going to be sharing. And all of this is really within the last month in getting a lot of this data, because this is what was shared most recently at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. So one of the things that I always like to do is just sort of highlight the talking points. So first of all, Bryan-College Station was already one of the fastest growing metros in Texas. Of course, the TeraFab story adds to the strength, but it isn't the whole thesis. Texas A&M is here. We've got a lot of medical, a lot of research, a lot of nuclear, even the military, etc., with RELLIS Campus. But TeraFab is a $16.8 billion development, over 100 million square feet. It's the largest— it will be the largest building in the world, and it's about 24 minutes from an area called— we call Colony Landing, which is a mixed-use development. So the nearest-term demand driver is construction, not permanent jobs. 4,900 workers sustained through 2036. This is near the TeraFab project. We're already moving, though. We've got apartments under construction. commercial permit-ready office retail, hotel and design. So we have already been really digging in on this area, but this really just magnifies it so much more. As I go into the existing strength plus extraordinary catalysts, so as I mentioned, Bryan-College Station's already a top-tier growth market. It is one of the most outgrowing Texas metros before TeraFab. The rising population, the wages beating inflation, and Texas A&M anchor definitely is a big part of that. But TerraFab changes the scale of the conversation. As I mentioned, it's a 100 million square foot semiconductor complex, over $16.8 billion going into the area, and that's just TerraFab, SpaceX alone. Imagine all the other research and development and support companies and businesses that will come because of that. It is 20 minutes from our property, Colony Landing, And as I mentioned, you know, we are already in the thick of things here in the area. But let's talk about, you know, some, some stats. So from a regional fundamental standpoint, um, over the last 5 years, there's been another 31,000 people, uh, in this— that has, uh, moved to this area. That's about a 12.02% over 5 years. Um, now at the population ending in May of 2026, there were 311,000 people. And so when you look at the net domestic migration, it's about 10,167. So 130,000 in, 120,000 out. International migration has been over 13,000 people. So we're not only seeing regional growth and domestic growth, but we are seeing international migration as well. And the 5-year population forecast projected to 2031 is over 6%. So whether, um, you know, most people are thinking about markets such as Austin, Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, you know, the big markets. But if you look at where Bryan-College Station sits among other Texas metros, like, it's extremely healthy, right behind Houston, Pasadena, and The Woodlands. Um, so College Station's 311,000. You look at the net migration And when you see this net migration percentage, you know, it's 3.27%. And, you know, Midland, you know, Sherman-Denison's over, you know, almost 11%. You've got Midland at 2.77%, Austin-Round Rock-San Marcos a little less than 3%. So really healthy. And then population change of 11.1%. And this is where I was saying that, you know, we're right below Houston. So Sherman-Denison has the Population change about 13.74%. Midland's 12.56%. Austin-Round Rock's 11.96%. Houston-Passadena-The Woodlands, 11.5%. And then we fall at College Station, 11.01%. It actually beats, uh, surprisingly, the Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington area from a population change standpoint. So why are people coming here? Well, I'm talking about before the TeraFab. Well, A big reason is, you know, commute time. You know, you compare that to other metro cities. Household income is strong for the cost of living that's in here. As families move here, it's one of the reasons why we've moved to Bryan-College Station is, you know, with having a family, kids, you know, crime is, you know, something we think about, especially coming from a large city. But 2.36 per 1,000 is, you know, considered violent crime. Stats here. Compare that to Austin of 2.93 and Dallas 2.99 and Houston of 5.31. It is, you know, much lower crime area. And then property crimes, you know, 12.68 compared to much higher in the other markets. So I think, you know, listening from the Chamber of Commerce just about a month ago, what we really picked up was, you know, commute times and crime rates are a big reason why. People do move here, obviously for jobs as well and cost of living. So when we look at Bryan-College Station, we compare that to other college metros. It's, it's pretty astonishing as well. Like if you look at Columbia, Missouri, or Fort Collins, Colorado, or Athens, Georgia, Ann Arbor, Michigan, you know, we beat those other college university metro areas. And historical or population change, example, 9% over the last 5 years. Jobs change percentage, 19%. Compare that to Fort Collins at 7% or Athens, Georgia, 13%. Commute time, you know, they're all within— we're still, you know, we're tied for first place at 19.6 minutes, but still very— You know, good compared to some of these other ones. But you're looking at Athens, Georgia, Ann Arbor, Michigan, still around that 23.5-minute mark. And then the unemployment rate at 4.4%, and that's also in line with these other university metro sets. So when you also look at like cost of living out here and you look at the private sector wages are at all-time highs, You know, the average weekly in the private sector in Bryan-College Station is about $1,077. And this is about a 17.6% wage growth versus 3.2% regional inflation. So when we look at the CPI over the 12 months, you know, it's, it's extremely healthy. And a big part of that is, you know, jobs out here are paying higher. wages. And then again, with the cost of living out here, it has brought quite a bit of people here. Big part of that is like land. Um, you know, coming from Austin area, you know, our house and our land was extremely expensive. Coming over to Bryan-College Station, we were able to buy, you know, more acreage out here, um, at a much, um, lesser expense. So that was sort of like leading up to this point. So all those numbers that I mentioned had nothing to do with TeraFab or or what's happening with SpaceX here, right? So now we're going into like, what do we see in the future? So TerraFab being the catalyst, we've mentioned that's 100 million square foot semiconductor, $16.8 billion initial announced investment, publicly announced jobs over 3,000. And this is gonna be a 9-year project. So a phased build-out timeline. And feel free to like Google TerraFab Grimes County, and you can see pictures of what this, what this, TeraFab will look like. It's a massive— to me, it looks like a massive spaceship, but it's gonna be 5 times the floor area of the New Century Global Center, which is about 18.9 million square feet in China. And so think about it like the Texas, you know, just think of the size and the magnitude of 100 million square feet. And now this is about 10 times the scale of Tesla's Giga Texas outside of Austin, Texas. So one of the projects we have is Colony Landing. This is about 24 minutes from College Station, and then from Houston, it's only about an hour and 50 minutes. So, and, and that's core downtown Houston. So if you're in The Woodlands or Cypress area, it's, it's much shorter. So phased employment is what they're planning, a much larger construction wave. So as I mentioned, there's going to be a 9-year project. So construction has already began— excuse me— on Phase 1, and that operation will begin in 2029, and that will be about 383 jobs. During the time from now to 2029, they're expecting over about 5,000 employees working on the construction of that project. Now, Phase 2 will go from 2029 to 2031. Operations will begin in 2032. That'll be another Rounding up 800 jobs. And then, as you see, phase 3, phase 4, as it grows. Now, these numbers here will continue growing as well. And I would even assume, you know, some of this will be AI, and there'll be things outsourced, right? Things will change over time. But if you think about all the other jobs and research and other technology-type firms, I've heard rumors of NASA and other robotic and other research and development companies coming in the area, and it's fueled to be closer to this TeraFab. So this is just a number based on this 100 million square foot property, but everything else that it brings in the area is going to be incredible. And when they bring this, it's going to be a massive spike in Pricing for housing, in my opinion, because there's only a certain amount of supply and demand. It's going to help even us as apartment owners because the, the rental market is going to be quite strong. And part of that is the strength of the, the salaries that are coming to the area as well. The lowest, you know, position is like $72,000 as a process technician, $95,000 annual salary equipment maintenance technician. 121,000 for model workforce. And so these numbers will just continue going up too as competitive workforce occurs. But beyond TerraFab, I sort of mentioned this a little bit earlier, but between the nuclear technology, robotics, additional semiconductors, which was mentioned that there's interest through the chamber presentation, NASA-related activity, These are all things that are also coming to the area. On August 19th, I was also informed that there may be some other prospective companies under discussion that are all Fortune 15 enterprises. So obviously, none yet have made public commitments, but a lot of these conversations are happening behind the scenes. So when we look at the submarket growth, you can see from a 11-year projection, right, thinking throughout, the combined is about 16.59%. Of that, 14% is attributable to TeraFab, right? So the overall 16.59%, a lot of that growth is in TeraFab and then other organic things that still occur. And these are, you know, the areas— South College Station, look at Navasota, it's pretty Dramatic. 44.74% growth, uh, is, is just incredible. Uh, East Bryan at 17.26%, Anderson 8.22%. Um, so this, this is pretty dramatic numbers. Um, for those that know, like, some of these areas like Navasota and Anderson— Anderson doesn't even have, uh, a streetlight. I mean, just give you an idea of that, right? So it's pretty a lot of growth that's happening. Iola, those areas as well are going to continue seeing the benefit as well through TerraFab. So what we've been doing, where we're going, we are, you know, we've done, you know, we're doing a SpringHill Suites in Bryan. We do a lot of multifamily in Houston, San Antonio. We've done storage. This Luxe 20 by 50 storage is actually in Bryan. We're developing 150-unit multifamily in Bryan as well. And then we have office retail, excuse me, a medical office in Huntsville, Alabama. And this property is a build-to-rent in Lafayette, Louisiana. So we are pretty diversified across the portfolio. But one of the things that we just really pride ourselves on, what we're super excited about, is just continue developing and making Bryan-College Station metro an area that we want to continue living in, but also growing with. So Colony Landing Apartments, this is already fully in construction. January 2028 is when we target completion. I actually, you know, went there today and everything is looking good for us to pour drive lanes over the next 2 weeks and start being— well, actually, we'll be done with vertical framing by the end of December into early January of 2027. So that work is already full construction going full steam ahead. And then we have Connie Landing office retail. This is about a 40,000-square-foot, what I'm calling retail condo space. So both office retail workers will be, you know, using the space, but it's all part of that master-planned community. So we have the apartments, we have this office retail, and then we have a hotel that I'll talk to you shortly about. But we're doing Altam Goodwin with our leasing, Keys and Walsh on construction. 4 exits from Texas A&M University, right next to the IMAX theater and restaurants. This is another slide just to show from an aerial standpoint of our office retail, and then we have our hotel here. And this is our SpringHill Suites by Marriott, 113 rooms. And so we are moving forward on the design. And so, I mean, this is one of many projects that we are going to be doing in this area. Again, a big support of the area before TeraFab, and now that TeraFab is, you know, already building, it's just— if you think about like Taylor, Texas, or Kyle, Texas, you know, areas that, you know, Tesla or Samsung, if it's, you know, the Taylor area, and just how massive those areas have grown, and it's just a fraction of the size of what is being built over here. So, um, some ways to reach out to us and learn more. One is CREIPartners.com. We also have a daily podcast, Building Passive Income. And then we also have our socials, so Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube. Definitely reach out. You can email me directly as well at wayne@CREIPartners.com. And look forward to sharing more information with you shortly.
