UTHealth Houston latest to break ground in Helix Park

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The UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, which operates out of three buildings currently, will consolidate all of its operations in the new building. Rendering courtesy of UTHealth

UTHealth Houston School of Public Health broke ground Tuesday on a new tower in the Texas Medical Center's Helix Park.

The $229 million facility is slated to be open in time for the fall semester in 2026. It will be home to research laboratories, distance-learning technology, an auditorium, teaching kitchen, collaborative spaces, and classrooms and adds 350,000 square feet to TMC’s Helix Park, which has several projects underway.

The UTHealth Houston School of Public Health, which operates out of three buildings currently, will consolidate all of its operations in the new building at 1930 Old Spanish Trail. Disciplines taught in the new tower will include epidemiology, genetics, nutrition, health policy, data science, and health promotion.

According to a statement from UTHealth, the facility will allow the school to continue to grow as enrollment has increased 27 percent over the last five years.

“The new building reflects our bold thinking as we pioneer radical solutions for imminent and future public health challenges while giving our students the tools and resources to improve the health of Texas,” Eric Boerwinkle, dean of UTHealth School of Public Health, said in a statement.

Houston-based Kirksey Architecture and Detroit-based Smith Group designed the new 10-story building which incorporates sustainable design. The tower is slated to feature rainwater harvesting for irrigation, an upper-level terrace, holistic teaching garden and a building automation programming. A skybride over Old Spanish Trail will also connect the UTHealth Houston School of Public Health with a plaza that is shared with MD Anderson.

The new tower joins the 12-story Dynamic One project at TMC Helix Park, which is slated to open this year. It will be anchored by Baylor College of Medicine and is the first of the four buildings planned for the 37-acre, five-million-square-foot development, named for the shape of the park and walkway design at the center of the campus.

The TMC3 Collaborative Building will also be located within Helix Park, also slated to open this year. The 250,000-square-foot space will house research facilities for MD Anderson Cancer Center, the Texas A&M University Health Science Center, the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, and TMC, as well as VC firms and hedge funds. UTHealth is also slated to move into a portion of that building in September or October.

Helix Park will be one of four districts within the TMC, including the already operating TMC Medical Campus and the TMC Innovation Factory. The TMC BioPort completes the list. The biomanufacturing and medical supplies distribution site is intended to create over 100,000 new job opportunities once completed.
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The Dynamic One building in TMC Helix Park is expected to deliver later this year. Rendering via TMC.edu

Rising TMC development names Houston health care institution as anchor tenant

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TMC Helix Park, formerly known as TMC3, has announced its first anchor tenant.

The Texas Medical Center and Beacon Capital Partners announced that Baylor College of Medicine will be the anchor tenant of the Dynamic One building at TMC Helix Park. The facility is will be the first to deliver of the four TMC Helix Park industry buildings. The Topped off in December, the Dynamic One building is being developed by Beacon in collaboration with Zoë Life Science and is scheduled to open before the end of the year.

“Beacon is excited that Dynamic One will be our first entry into the fast-growing Houston Life Science market,” says Fred Seigel, president and CEO of Beacon, in a news release. “This state-of-the-art environment is designed to enable and encourage collaboration and will greatly accelerate the innovative lifesaving discoveries that emerge when industry and academic research work side-by-side.”

Baylor College of Medicine will lease 114,000 square-feet of lab and office space in the 355,000-square-foot building. BCM's goal is to house lab space for novel diagnostics and therapeutics — and provide space to house startups.

The organization is expanding its presence in Houston after decades of residing in the region.

“Baylor College of Medicine moved to Houston in 1943 and was the first institution built in the Texas Medical Center," says Dr. Paul Klotman, president and CEO and executive dean of Baylor, in the release. "Our researchers and scientists will have the opportunity to access the uniquely concentrated research environment being developed at TMC Helix Park, facilitating the continuing advancement of innovation and compassionate care."

TMC Helix Park, which includes more than 5 million-square-feet of space across 37-acres, also expects to deliver its research facility, the TMC3 Collaborative Building, later this year.

“Baylor College of Medicine is a major force in life sciences discovery and commercialization at TMC," says Bill McKeon, president and CEO of TMC, in the release. "Their move to TMC Helix Park will serve as a catalyst for enhanced collaboration with TMC’s other esteemed Institutions, as well as with industry leaders from around the world."

BCM is the first anchor tenant announced for TMC Helix Park. Rendering via TMC.edu

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23 Houston companies rank among America’s most future-ready businesses

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By one measure, Spring-based tech giant Hewlett Packard Enterprises reigns as the most future-ready Houston-area company on the S&P 500 stock index.

HPE sits at No. 72 in a first-time ranking of the best S&P 500 companies for the future. Including HPE, 23 Houston-area companies appear on the list.

Published by The Wall Street Journal, the ranking was created by Bendable Labs for the WSJ Leadership Institute. It evaluates how S&P 500 companies stack up in six areas: AI readiness, innovation, talent readiness, financial fitness, resilience and agility. To be ranked, a company had to be part of the S&P 500 as of Dec. 31.

Among the six categories, HPE ranked highest for innovation (No. 30) among local companies. The WSJ didn’t say why HPE scored so well for innovation. However, the company stands out in this category thanks to:

  • Creation of the El Capitan and Frontier supercomputing systems
  • Research into photonic computing and quantum networking
  • Last year’s $14 billion acquisition of Juniper Networks, giving HPE an edge in AI-native networking
  • Establishment of the everything-as-a-service GreenLake hybrid cloud platform for data centers, colocation facilities and edge computing environments

In an interview with the Six Five podcast at HPE Discover 2025 in Las Vegas, CEO Antonio Neri said the company’s strategy is “basically founded on innovation, and that innovation drives shareholder value over the long term.”

While HPE fared well in the innovation category, it ranked toward the bottom for financial fitness. What’s behind the No. 430 ranking in the financial category? HPE’s low score likely reflects a debt-heavy acquisition strategy coupled with a historically low-margin hardware business.

Here’s the full list of the 23 Houston-area companies included in the ranking of the best companies for the future:

  • No. 72 Hewlett Packard Enterprise
  • No. 105 SLB
  • No. 120 Baker Hughes
  • No. 125 ConocoPhillips
  • No. 158 NRG Energy
  • No. 176 Targa Resources
  • No. 185 Chevron
  • No. 195 Halliburton
  • No. 223 Coterra Energy
  • No. 229 Waste Management
  • No. 235 Exxon Mobil
  • No. 250 Kinder Morgan
  • No. 257 Quanta Services
  • No. 276 CenterPoint Energy
  • No. 285 Sysco
  • No. 313 Occidental Petroleum
  • No. 318 Camden Property Trust
  • No. 333 EOG Resources
  • No. 365 LyondellBasell Industries
  • No. 373 Comfort Systems USA
  • No. 401 Crown Castle
  • No. 408 Phillips 66
  • No. 500 APA

Uber, Nuro and Lucid plan to roll out robotaxi services in Houston

autonomous autos

More autonomous vehicles are expected to hit the roads in Houston next year.

Ridesharing giant Uber announced that it plans to roll out its premium robotaxi service in the Bayou City in mid-2027. Houston will be Uber’s second planned market for the program, following the San Francisco Bay Area, where the program is expected to be rolled out later this year.

Uber, Nuro and Lucid Group will bring the robotaxi program to Houston with more markets planned for the future. Currently, Nuro is conducting autonomous on-road testing with safety operators in Houston. Testing includes simulation, closed-course testing and supervised public-road testing.

“Houston is a city Nuro knows well, and we’re excited to help bring this robotaxi service to the city through our partnership with Uber and Lucid,” Andrew Chapin, chief operating officer at Nuro, said in a news release. “Houston’s large, complex metro area is an ideal market for demonstrating how Nuro’s universal autonomy platform can generalize across different geographies and operating environments. We look forward to continued engagement with the community as we prepare to launch service in 2027.”

The fleet of 100 vehicles across California and Texas will feature Lucid Gravity EVs and future Lucid Midsize vehicles equipped with Nuro Driver technology, Nuro’s Level 4 universal autonomy platform, plus a redundant sensor suite with cameras, lidar, radar and a roof-mounted halo.

The vehicles will be owned and operated by Uber and its fleet partners and made available to riders through the Uber network, according to the company.

In addition to the fleet of autonomous vehicles, Uber also announced that it has secured a 50,000-square-foot depot facility and dedicated charging pitstop in Houston. The facility will allow Uber and its partners to control vehicle maintenance, repairs, charging, cleaning, and day-to-day operations.

“Houston marks an important next step in our partnership with Lucid and Nuro as we expand autonomous mobility to more riders throughout the world,” Sarfraz Maredia, global head of autonomous mobility & delivery at Uber, added in the release. “Together, we’re combining best-in-class vehicle and autonomy technology with Uber’s scale, fleet operations expertise, and infrastructure capabilities to build a service that can grow across dozens of markets in the years ahead.”

Waymo launched its autonomous vehicle program in Houston in February.

The company later suspended its driverless car services in Houston, other major Texas cities, and Atlanta, after one of its vehicles was stranded by flooding during heavy rains. However, according to the Houston Chronicle, the fleet has resumed activity in Houston and is fully active.

Houston fintech company closes $7M funding round

fintech funding

Houston-based fintech company Receipts Depositary Corporation has closed a $7 million oversubscribed funding round and plans to scale.

The round was led by Austin-based LiveOak Ventures, with participation from Hivemind Capital, Onigiri Capital, OTC Markets Group, GTS, and Redbeard Ventures, according to a release from RDC.

RDC's platform issues depositary receipts (DRs) to qualified investors on digital and alternative assets, making it easier for investors to buy and trade hard-to-access and less traditional assets. Currently, the company offers DRs for cryptocurrencies including Bitcoin, Ethereum, Solana and XRP.

RDC says the new funding will allow it to launch new DR products across a wider range of asset categories, potentially including commodities. Additionally, it plans to grow its relationships with "banks, broker-dealers, market makers, custodians and exchange partners" and add to its product, operations, technology, and commercial functions teams. The company is actively hiring, according to a press release.

“Depositary Receipts are trusted, regulated capital markets products which RDC is bringing to an entirely new universe of assets, from commodities to digital assets, that have historically been out of reach of traditional securities markets," Krishna Srinivasan, founding partner at LiveOak Ventures, said the release. “The team's depth of experience in the DR business on a global scale, combined with the broad institutional validation from co-investors, anchor customers, and strategic partners across asset classes, makes RDC uniquely positioned to define this category. We're proud to lead this round and support the company as it scales.”

RDC was founded in 2022 by three Citibank alumni: CEO Ankit Mehta, CEO Bryant Kim and COO Ishaan Narain. It began offering its first DRs for Bitcoin in 2024.

“This funding round is a strong validation of what we’re building at RDC and the growing demand for modernized Depositary Receipt infrastructure,” Mehta added in the release. “With the support of LiveOak Ventures and our investor partners, we are accelerating development across our DR platform expanding our market reach, and building the team needed to support the next generation of DR product

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