53°
49º | 72°
East End Maker Hub (EEMH) is opening this Thursday, June 3 to help Urban Partnerships Community Development Corporation (UP CDC) and TXRX realize goals to present opportunities to the East End Houston community with their $38 million project.
The Hub’s site was a single tenant industrial building that was later renovated into what is now a 300,000-square-foot facility. UP CDC and TXRX aim to house Houston innovators and other manufacturing businesses including fabricators and crafters, under one roof.
“TXRX Labs runs a makerspace, but it's more than that, they're large, they're a nonprofit, and they're staffed by engineers and scientists, and they have a membership and their membership is largely a lot of engineers, a lot of makers, lots of people that do things hands-on,” Patrick Ezzel told Houston Daily. “TXRX, prior to this building, had about 40,000 feet that they occupied. They found that they were losing their space because the landlord is going to redevelop the building. And so, the other nonprofit in this group is Urban Partnership CDC or UP CDC, I'm the CEO of that company. We're a nonprofit real estate development company.”
The unique Hub is projected to create over 400 jobs for the community, and 200 induced jobs yearly to revitalize Houston's East End.
“My hope is that the high percentage, say in excess of 70 or 80% of the people that work here come from the surrounding neighborhoods which are Hispanic and African American, and they were successful and bringing those individuals to train for these jobs,” Ezzel said. “Secondly, I would see this as being an ongoing vehicle to train individuals that are not college-bound, so they can have good-paying jobs. And for creative individuals to help them have a pathway to create new manufacturing businesses, so that from now into the future this particular economic engine has a big impact on the folks that live in these neighborhoods so that they can earn more money and build more wealth and prosper more.”
EEMH is projected to drive Houston’s economic resiliency with a $153 million yearly economic impact beyond single industries like oil and gas.
“All of our tenants signed agreements that they will do their best to hire people through the TXRX training programs, get their trainees from the neighborhoods and they'll fill one of the 450 jobs that we expect to create this location,” Ezzel said. “But one of the reasons that we did the project as far as UP CDC because our mission is really to build wealth in low and moderate-income neighborhoods. It creates a vehicle so that people can get skilled and move from low-income wages to middle-income jobs."
The Hub is expected to get more tenants and be full-house by the end of the year.
East End Houstonians can get updates for training and job opportunities through the websites of TXRX and the East End Maker Hub.