Episodes

  • Huntsville apartment deliveries: 5,211 in 2024, 802 so far this year

    Huntsville apartment deliveries: 5,211 in 2024, 802 so far this year
    6 Nov 2026
    Huntsville issued certificates of occupancy for 5,211 apartment units in 2024 and 802 through August 31 of this year — and the free-rent deals are already shrinking from three months to two. This Rocket City Brief reads the City's certificate series as reported by the Huntsville Business Journal, then sets a second, independent count beside it: David Wilson's year-end 2025 multifamily overview for RCP Companies, which counts delivered units rather than certificates and gives the figures a certificate count cannot — properties under construction down from 60 to 30 to 12 across three year-ends, 82.4% overall occupancy including lease-ups, and 40 properties still leasing up with roughly 4,900 vacant units between them.
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    4 min
  • Space Command's Redstone campus: an advisor is hired, the money is not appropriated

    Space Command's Redstone campus: an advisor is hired, the money is not appropriated
    30 Oct 2026
    Parsons has disclosed an $85 million, 75-month agreement to act as owner's advisor on the U.S. Space Command headquarters campus at Redstone Arsenal — and an owner's advisor works for the government, not for a builder. This Rocket City Brief separates what has actually been bought from what has only been estimated: a roughly 950,000-square-foot campus for up to 1,800 people, two cost figures that do not agree ($2 billion from Parsons for design and build, $4 billion as reported by SpaceNews), and the $565 million in the FY2027 military construction bill, H.R. 8469, which passed the House 400–15 on May 15, 2026 and is sitting in the Senate.
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    5 min
  • Mastin Lake overpass opens: the Restore Our Roads scorecard, and what is still closed

    Mastin Lake overpass opens: the Restore Our Roads scorecard, and what is still closed
    23 Oct 2026
    The Mastin Lake Road overpass on Memorial Parkway opened on October 16, 2026, and the underpass beneath it did not. This Rocket City Brief uses that ribbon-cutting as the occasion to read the City's own Restore Our Roads scorecard line by line: seven projects listed complete, two still under construction, and one — U.S. 72 West at University Drive — still in environmental review and right-of-way acquisition, which is the earliest stage on the board. It also covers the two engineering design contracts the Council approved on October 8 for Huntsville-annexed Limestone County, with no dollar amounts published for either.
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    5 min
  • Resolute Way and Redstone Gate 9: who is paying for the new road — The Rocket City Brief

    Resolute Way and Redstone Gate 9: who is paying for the new road — The Rocket City Brief
    13 Oct 2026
    Resolute Way, the planned road from Interstate 565 to Redstone Arsenal's Gate 9, is still in design, so existing access remains the planning assumption. We walk through the documented state agreement, design contract, city road budget and reported federal grant, explain why those amounts cannot yet be added together, and list what to watch next, plus a quick note on Roots Group's new south Huntsville plant.
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    3 min
  • Huntsville TIF 8: the $230 million capacity map before the growth - The Rocket City Brief

    Huntsville TIF 8: the $230 million capacity map before the growth - The Rocket City Brief
    21 Sep 2026
    Huntsville proposed TIF 8 is a capacity map, not an approved construction program. Here is the operator read before the expected Council vote.
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    4 min
  • Graham Farms development agreement: why Huntsville is extending sewer before the town square exists — The Rocket City Brief

    Graham Farms development agreement: why Huntsville is extending sewer before the town square exists — The Rocket City Brief
    12 Sep 2026
    A local-operator read on the Graham Farms development agreement, the infrastructure commitments that come first, and a separate University Drive planning signal.
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    3 min
  • Graham Farms development agreement: what is approved now — The Rocket City Brief

    Graham Farms development agreement: what is approved now — The Rocket City Brief
    12 Sep 2026
    Graham Farms is a City-approved development agreement with a City-stated fifteen-year horizon. Follow The Rocket City Brief for sourced Huntsville operator reads that turn early development signals into a useful long-horizon ledger.
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    3 min
  • Big Spring Park East construction: the downtown connection Huntsville is building before spring twenty twenty-seven — The Rocket City Brief

    Big Spring Park East construction: the downtown connection Huntsville is building before spring twenty twenty-seven — The Rocket City Brief
    12 Sep 2026
    A fast local-operator read on Big Spring Park East construction, the Church Street-to-Fountain Circle connection, and the difference between visible progress and a completed amenity.
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    3 min