RE: Real Estate Podcast

Clint C. Galliano (00:00)
Natural.

Ben Harang (00:03)
If you need to change it, change it.

Clint C. Galliano (00:07)
No, I I made my changes and I'm gonna run with that.

Ben Harang (00:11)
All right.

Clint C. Galliano (00:14)
Mark, one hundred billion dollars for a spate and I fuck it up.

Ben Harang (00:21)
He

Clint C. Galliano (00:27)
Mark two one hundred billion dollars for a spaceport in the marsh. Data centers going up in North Louisiana. Louisiana's economic map is changing, and real estate is always where you feel it first. Let's talk about it.

Ben Harang (00:45)
Works for me.

Clint C. Galliano (00:46)
All right, so I can roll.

Ben Harang (00:48)
We li we we recording. Okay. All right. All right, here we go. Mark. Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of the RV Real Estate Podcast. My name is Ben Harang. And with me as usual is my sidekick, Clint Galliano. How you doing today, Clint?

Clint C. Galliano (00:50)
Yeah, we've been recording.

I'm doing wonderful, Ben. How you doing?

Ben Harang (01:14)
I'm doing terrific, man. ⁓ the weather's changing. ⁓ it's only eighty five degrees instead of ninety eight degrees. ⁓ Sun's coming up a little bit later in the morning, going down a little bit earlier in the evening. ⁓ falls fall looks like it's right there. So hopefully we'll get some before winter gets to us. Then we're not gonna just have summer in in winter.

Clint C. Galliano (01:36)
Hopefully hope hopefully we get like at least a month or two of ⁓ highs of sixty five. I could really get into that.

Ben Harang (01:46)
That'd be good. That would be good. That'd be good. All right. What are we talking about today, Clint?

Clint C. Galliano (01:55)
All right. We're ⁓ living in Louisiana, we're kind of used to being the the butt of the jokes and last on every list. ⁓ but over the last year or so, a little bit more than a year, we've been getting some big economic development wins. And so we're gonna run down some of the biggest projects that Louisiana

Ben Harang (02:17)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano (02:23)
Louisiana Economic Development has announced and then we're gonna tell you what we think about So why don't you start us off with the big one, Ben?

Ben Harang (02:33)
⁓ number one everybody in the area knows is SpaceX. Starbase Louisiana at Pecan Island in Vermilion Parish. Louisiana Economic Development puts it at one hundred billion with a B dollars with its first launch targeted for twenty twenty nine. Wow.

Clint C. Galliano (02:54)
That's ⁓ that's amazing. ⁓ and

Ben Harang (02:56)
I still have trouble understanding that one.

Clint C. Galliano (03:00)
It's so I I see it as a lot of opportunity. You know, there there's a lot of haters that I don't I don't know what the reason ⁓ but they they seem to seem to be the same people that are always knocking any progress that gets made and just look yeah the naysayers and they're

Ben Harang (03:06)
Mm-hmm.

The naysayers.

Yeah.

Clint C. Galliano (03:29)
They'll say, well, what about this? And what about that? And yeah, you know, the politicians are getting their pockets lined. And, you know, and granted, Louisiana's got a really bad history of that happening. But my opinion on that, and it's ⁓ I guess it's kind of a flip side, is it's bringing a bunch of jobs to Louisiana. There's the construction portion.

Ben Harang (03:52)
Mm.

Clint C. Galliano (03:58)
There's gonna be ongoing construction, ⁓ well, starship construction and fuel production and stuff like that. That's ongoing jobs. There's a lot of people from shipyards and working in oil field that might have a good fit for some of these positions that are gonna be continuous jobs. So

that's a that's not a a shabby opportunity. And then the side benefits of that is a they're gonna have to do some mitigation for anything they build in that area. And what that means is is that they're gonna have to for the amount of land that they're impacting with their construction, whether it's roads or

Ben Harang (04:53)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano (04:54)
buildings or yards or whatever, they're gonna have to go and rebuild some other areas of marsh to basically replace what they're impacting with their construction. So and then on top of that, they're gonna have to build what they're building in such a way that it's protected from erosion and storm surge and all of that stuff.

So technically you're getting a two for one on the coastal restoration front. ⁓ and I look at that as a win win for sure.

Ben Harang (05:24)
Mm-hmm.

No no doubt. It's just ⁓ I just need to get in my truck and go take a ride to Pecan Island and just see what's going on out there right now. ⁓ just to try to wrap my brain around.

Clint C. Galliano (05:51)
Yeah, I I think that the at least from what I've seen, probably the the biggest thing is that they've got practically it's lock protected direct access to the Gulf. So that's gonna make it easier to ship stuff, ⁓ equipment that maybe might not be the easiest thing to transport over roads and just bring it in on barges.

Ben Harang (06:10)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano (06:21)
⁓ they'll be able to go back and forth between their ⁓ Texas location and there. ⁓ I saw that permits were pulled to create a bunch of dock space south of the locks in that area, ⁓ so that, you know, they don't necessarily have to get everything through the lock, but there's a w kind of a staging dock to tie things up while moving back and forth. So it's ⁓ I'm excited about it.

Ben Harang (06:44)
Mm.

It'll be interesting. Mhm. Me too. Me too. ⁓

Clint C. Galliano (06:50)
Yeah, yeah. It's it's it's gonna be really interesting.

All right. So let's let's talk about the the next one. ⁓ so number two is Meta's Hyperion Data Center in Richland Parish. Meta says that more than $50 billion is what they're gonna ⁓ what they're gonna invest. I don't think it started out that much, but they increased it to a $50 billion billion with a B.

Ben Harang (07:22)
Mm-hmm. Amazing.

Clint C. Galliano (07:24)
billion dollars. If anybody remembers ⁓ Austin Powers. ⁓ and then number three is Amazon in Caddo and Bosier. It looks like it's a couple of different locations. Louisiana economic development says that Amazon raised its plan to eighteen billion dollars of investment.

Ben Harang (07:40)
Mm-hmm.

That that's crazy. You have a hundred billion, fifty billion, and eighteen billion. And if we don't have a hundred fift a hundred billion and fifty billion, eighteen billion is a lot. It it skews it skews everything. ⁓ all right. Number four on the list is HUT 8's AI data center in West Feliciana, which is up to ten billion dollars.

Number five is applied digital in Rapids Parish, three point six billion dollars. We're throwing these prices around like they used to talk about millions and now we're talking about billions. ⁓ it's it's just crazy.

Clint C. Galliano (08:31)
Yeah, well just like like we were saying ⁓ a minute ago before we started recording, it it's almost like ⁓ Austin Powers was ⁓ was prophetic. You know, it's like he says, I'm gonna do, you know, one million dollars and everybody starts laughing at him. You know, it's like these days it's it's the billions with a B. That's crazy. You know, that now my take on this, I think

Ben Harang (08:50)
Uh-huh.

Right. Right. It is. It is.

Clint C. Galliano (09:01)
data centers are it's it's an opportunity to add to our economy. ⁓ a lot of people are against them. ⁓ again, it's a lot of the same people that are poo-pooing SpaceX, ⁓ it seems to be. The lot of people have valid concerns, but at the same time they're just spewing talking points that

Ben Harang (09:17)
Mm.

Clint C. Galliano (09:32)
You know, without doing any research, you know. So the the main things that come up is it's gonna make our power go up. ⁓ we're gonna have to pay for the for them to get new power lines and and power plants and ⁓ they're gonna use up all the water.

Ben Harang (09:50)
Mm. Well the well

Clint C. Galliano (09:53)
The majority of the water that gets used, and and this is it's it's kind of a pet peeve of mine because people either don't know or don't even think about what's involved with it. They're not taking the the drinking water. They're not hooking up to a fire hydrant and sucking all the water out of the system. They're not drilling a well into an aquifer and draining the aquifer.

Ben Harang (10:11)
Mm.

Clint C. Galliano (10:19)
The majority of these plants, the water that gets used is for cooling and it's not like, you know, or well, ⁓ sticking a pump in a river and pumping water and then discharging it back in the river. That's not what's happening. They're filling up the system and you might lose a little bit to evaporation throughout the process, but they're not continuously sucking in and discharging water.

Ben Harang (10:34)
Mm.

Clint C. Galliano (10:46)
It's a closed loop system. So it's the same batch of water. I heard somebody refer to it as the equivalent of filling up a swimming pool. Yeah.

Ben Harang (10:50)
Right.

You d you don't you don't use water. Water doesn't I mean y you use it but it doesn't go anywhere. Like once you once you once you use it you still have it.

Clint C. Galliano (11:01)
Right. And and

And the the I think the big thing is is that the numbers that they may be referring to, and and and I haven't researched it enough to confirm that, but I suspect that so every time a set volume of water passes through a cooling system, say for a data center, that's considered thousands of gallons, however many thousands of gallons that was consumed.

And if that same batch of water runs through again, then that ups the ticker again by that same number for volume of water. And so when people report on it, they say, it's using this many gallons of water. But it's the same number of gallons of water that's being recirculated and recirculated and recirculated.

Ben Harang (11:52)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano (11:59)
And then on to address the the power generation point, the governor passed an order that required anybody that requires extra power generation or extra infrastructure, they have to cover those costs as part of building the project. You know, so it doesn't get passed on to the taxpayer.

Ben Harang (12:19)
Right. Right.

And that that's my hope that that that that holds. ⁓ so well Yeah.

Clint C. Galliano (12:28)
Yep. Right right. 'Cause this is Louisiana. Not not to be falling back on the stereotype, but ⁓ you know, it it's something that we all have to watch out for, regardless of where you are.

Ben Harang (12:39)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Clint C. Galliano (12:47)
All right. So the number six, ⁓ it's not a data center. It's a steel mill. And it's the Hyundai steel mill in Donaldsonville. It's a five point eight billion with a B dollar investment. Louisiana Economic Development says that that one was named the country's top economic development deal of twenty twenty five. So it it didn't wasn't announced this year. ⁓

Ben Harang (12:47)
Okay.

Clint C. Galliano (13:15)
But it it's still it's a recent development and it's approximately thirteen hundred direct jobs at announcement. they're expecting actually I think they started construction already.

Ben Harang (13:27)
They they're turning dirt on that one. ⁓ I don't I don't think they have all the kinks worked out, but they have enough of worked out that they're actually turning dirt. So that's

Clint C. Galliano (13:30)
Yeah.

Yep. The ⁓ and what's cool about that is that that's what. Depending on where you're sitting or where I'm sitting, it's you know, less than an hour away from our market and part of my our market is is in it. Yeah. ⁓ you know, so that that one probably will have ⁓ as you said earlier, well I'll let you say it.

Ben Harang (13:49)
Yeah. It's forty f forty, forty five minutes. Mm-hmm. That's right. That's right. So the

Well, I think that one directly will affect us more than everything else that's going on. but the SpaceX stuff is gonna people that are in the aerospace business, and I'm a I'm a call out K&B Machine in Schriever, they currently produce components for aerospace today. So it should be right up their alley.

To be able to get in and get some work from the SpaceX project. That'd be local people working locally for SpaceX, and that's just an example. ⁓ I don't think that's gonna drive the housing market here. The Hyundai Steel project in Donaldsonville will absolutely drive the housing market locally. ⁓ so when when I look at this list all together, my first reaction is like, wow.

How did all of this happen in Louisiana in the last two years? ⁓ there's for all of these expansions ⁓ on new enterprises, there won't be near enough housing locally for the people that they'll employ. housing will continue to be scarce as the builders ramp up to build more housing units, whether that's R V parks, mobile homes, tract.

housing like D SLD and DR Horton build. All of that takes time. Some of it takes more time than others. But the ⁓ Pecan Island, I'm hearing they're gonna do more RV parks stuff and people go live in in travel trailers and and campers just because of their proximity to the coast and and building a lot of housing that close is probably not a wise idea. ⁓ but housing

around all of these ventures is not gonna ⁓ there's not gonna be enough.

Clint C. Galliano (16:05)
Yeah. As far as the like the SpaceX stuff, for that area, there's not a whole lot for housing. You know, I've seen people complain, if you live within twenty miles of SpaceX, ⁓ it's not gonna be good for housing. Within twenty miles of SpaceX for the most part is gonna be campers. I'm not sorry, not campers, camps.

Ben Harang (16:15)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Right, right.

Clint C. Galliano (16:32)
'Cause that's the majority of what's in that area. I know it's on the edge of Gueydon and Kaplan and Abbeyville and stuff, but I don't think it's gonna be that big of an impact to those areas. ⁓ and to be honest, Youngsville, Broussard, those areas are not a far drive from Pecan Island. So just like we have people that live in Thibodaux and drive to the plants on the river.

Ben Harang (17:01)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano (17:02)
that's where the people that are gonna have the permanent jobs in that at Pecan Island, they're gonna be living in those areas. And potentially some from from our market, but I would I would think most of them would lean towards the Broussard and Youngsville area. ⁓ as far as the R V parks and all, I would see that being real big while they're doing the construction. I don't see it ⁓ being a permanent thing for people in that area.

Ben Harang (17:27)
Mm. ⁓

Yeah. But it may it may also lead to whether it's turnarounds or when when they have periods of time where they have peak employment, it might be additional housing that could continue to be used after the construction of the the SpaceX base.

Clint C. Galliano (17:52)
Well, what I'm thinking is is that, you know, once it's constructed and they start doing launches and all, any infrastructure that gets put up as far as R V parks and everything, that's gonna be a tourism center. You know, not saying a a true center, but but a place for people to come and park their RVs and watch the launches.

Ben Harang (18:08)
True, just to go watch the launches. Mm-hmm.

Mhm. Mhm. Yeah. So all right. If ⁓

Let's see where are we? if I lived in Abbeyville or Kaplan right now, what I'd be thinking about is do I want to buy or do I wanna sell? If I'm if I'm sitting on property, I may want to sell it. If I want if I'm not, I may wanna buy it. If I'm sitting on property, I may want to develop it to lease it. ⁓ so there's there's all kinds of things you can all kind of different ways to approach it.

You know, land at at forty thousand dollars an acre per an article in any advocate out there. ⁓ Clint and I was talking before, that that seems a little low to both of us. ⁓ we we see property around here in the hundred and twenty five thousand dollars an acre range, depending on on what. Now it's not this this many acres. but it just it still seems a little low at forty thousand dollars an acre. So that's that's how I'd be thinking about it.

Clint C. Galliano (19:26)
Yeah, and you know, continuing off of that, you know, we we talked about RV parks. You know, from an investor perspective, that might be something to look into. it'll have some utility during the construction phase, which will be two or three years. but there's a high possibility of continued viability for

Ben Harang (19:39)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano (19:55)
And if nothing else, tourism.

Ben Harang (19:58)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah. And and flood zones and zoning. I don't know what what zoning there is in in Vermilion Parish, but I would not go in there blind and just start buying anything and everything. ⁓ need to look at ⁓ at the old and the new flood maps, depending on whether Vermilion Parish has has accepted the new flood maps and if they haven't you need to see where where it's going to ultimately end up. zoning.

is is a bigger deal than most people realize. ⁓ if you can do it in a in a zone, you can do it if you can't do it in a zone is it'll be problematic to have things changed the way you can. So just just pay attention to those things. So the the part the part of all this that gives me pause, Clint, ⁓ is a demand on the infrastructure.

Clint C. Galliano (20:52)
Yeah. And

Ben Harang (20:59)
And if the developers come in and and build out the roads, the drainage, the water, gas, electricity, sewer, ⁓ that's great. We just need to be smart about it to where we're not twenty years behind after everything's built. We're trying to catch up on what should have been done while that was being constructed. ⁓ that's that's my concern. But hopefully that's taken care of taken care of on the front end.

Clint C. Galliano (21:29)
It it sounds like, you know, they're they're taking that into account, ⁓ especially with permits ⁓ that I've seen that have been applied for for increasing infrastructure, ⁓ building out heavy lift roads for moving heavy stuff around on the site and to access to it, things like that. But like I said a little while ago, ⁓

Ben Harang (21:49)
Mm.

Clint C. Galliano (21:56)
It's gonna be up to us to keep an eye on everything and make sure that everybody's following the rules.

Ben Harang (22:03)
Yeah. Right. Let's just let's just get it done right. Let's be smart about it. All right. Let's ⁓ let's bring it home. What does all this mean to somebody in Houma or Thibodaux?

Clint C. Galliano (22:17)
So we talked about, you know, that people in our area can potentially be working either for or for somebody that's working for SpaceX. ⁓ we don't have any data centers directly here. There is I'm not sure if it's an incubator or a test site that's in the process of being set up.

Ben Harang (22:28)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano (22:45)
actually here in Houma, ⁓ that's ⁓ I think you know a little bit more about that than me.

Ben Harang (22:51)
Well, it's it's a it's a hundred million dollar brain hub development that's actually underway right now on Barrow Street in Houma. I think it's flying under the radar locally. ⁓ but it it sounds like it's it's neurological AI, whether it's it's something to do with the brain and and AI. So it's not a true data center, but ⁓ you know, if you ask me tomorrow

Well where any of this is gonna change, I tell people to buy now locally. Again, subject to flood zones and zoning.

Clint C. Galliano (23:34)
Yep. Well, on top of that, the Houma Terrebonne Airport was just picked as one of eight national test sites for next generation aircraft. So think autonomous ⁓ planes, ⁓ things like that. Not necessarily drones, but I guess technically it's drones, but autonomous flight for drones. And I wanna say that the first ever test

Ben Harang (23:56)
Mm.

Clint C. Galliano (24:03)
flight that was conducted was conducted here at the Houma airport.

Ben Harang (24:08)
Right, right. And and they've they've been building the in improving the infrastructure at the Houma airport for years. They they have a sixty five hundred foot runway, they have multiple runways. ⁓ the thing about the test flights, it's out they they're ten minutes from open water, so they can do all the tests flying out over the Gulf. so that that that's a big deal. ⁓ and that's another one that's flying under the radar locally. I think that's gonna be a huge deal.

Over time.

Clint C. Galliano (24:39)
Now something else that we didn't mention, it actually wasn't on our list, but ⁓ there's a local shipyard called Metal Shark ⁓ that had some defense contracts and they were purchased by a company called Saronic, S-A-R-O-N-I-C. And if you're not familiar with Saronic, they're the ones that developed the marine drones.

Ben Harang (25:00)
Mm-hmm.

Clint C. Galliano (25:07)
⁓ marine as in offshore. ⁓ if you're watching news coverage of the of the Iraq war or whatever you want to refer to it as, ⁓ it was saronic drones that blew up that dock a couple of months ago. ⁓ I don't know that they built those here. I don't think they're building them yet, but they're expanding the facility. ⁓

Ben Harang (25:10)
Mm-hmm.

Mm.

Okay.

Clint C. Galliano (25:35)
that and they may start building those autonomous marine drones here in Louisiana. So that's something else that's going on. So going between Houma and ⁓ really Morgan City and and New Iberia, you you cross over the the old Metal Shark slash saronic ⁓ facility and you can see all the the work and the construction they're doing and building up new fab shops and things like that. So that's pretty neat.

Ben Harang (25:49)
Mm.

Okay.

Clint C. Galliano (26:05)
So all of that being said, it's homework time.

Ben Harang (26:10)
⁓ nope, nope. You just it's your turn to give me homework that I'm not gonna do.

Clint C. Galliano (26:15)
Yep. All right. So your homework this week is to pull up your parish council's next agenda and look for anything on zoning, industrial development, or data centers. And if you're thinking about buying or selling land, once you call me or Ben, our contact info is gonna be in the show notes. ⁓ can reach out to either one of us. We'd love to help you buy some land.

Ben Harang (26:40)
All right, that wraps it up. If if this episode helped ya, like it, share it with somebody who's buying or selling. Subscribe wherever you get your podcast. You can you can get all of it on rerealestatepodcast.com ⁓ link to the YouTube channel with all the videos. ⁓ if you wanna watch two guys with faces for radio, that's up to you, but the audio is also available.

Clint C. Galliano (27:09)
All right, Ben. Looks like we got another one in the can.

Ben Harang (27:12)
All right. That'll do it. Everybody have a great day. See you, Clint.

Clint C. Galliano (27:18)
See you, Ben.