Steven Spillette • Spillette Consulting • Principal

Mr. Spillette is an Urban Development Strategist with over 12 years of diverse experience in real estate and urban planning. Prior to forming a strategic alliance with CDS Market Research, he had conducted market/economic studies and financial analyses for a variety of private and public development projects, primarily in the Houston area and in California. In addition, he has authored several plans and articles dealing with real estate and public sector development.

A native Houstonian, Mr. Spillette earned a B.A.S. degree in Quantitative Economics and Applied Earth Sciences from Stanford University in 1990, after which he joined the San Francisco office of the national real estate consulting firm Economics Research Associates. Beginning as a Research Associate, he assisted in performing a variety of market studies for both private and public clients related to single family and multifamily residential, retail, office, industrial, hotel, meeting facilities, and golf. He has familiarity with a variety of environments, from large city downtown office markets to suburban subdivisions to rural/exurban golf and recreational developments. Promoted to Associate, he developed full market demand and absorption projections for many of the above uses
including financial pro-forma analyses. He also worked on significant studies related to major public investments and strategic initiatives, including naval base closures, sports arena strategies, and urban park management.

Transportation-related projects became a new focus of Mr. Spillette’s career while interning with the San Francisco firm of Pittman & Hames Associates, which he joined while attending the City Planning Program at the University of California at Berkeley. He contributed research to several public transit projects around the San Francisco Bay Area and California, examining land use, real estate market, and transit financing issues. He earned Masters of City Planning and Transportation Engineering in 1995 and subsequently returned to Houston.

Upon his return, Mr. Spillette joined the Uptown Houston Improvement District as Director of Planning and Development. He conducted the District’s economic research pertaining to office, retail, hotel, and residential markets plus public tax revenue generation, packaging his analysis in District marketing and public information documents. He also was responsible for creating and managing the District’s annual operating budget and monitoring District property values for revenue forecasting purposes. In 1999, he was a primary author of the District’s planning documents that led to the successful creation of a tax increment reinvestment zone for the purpose of implementing mobility improvements.

In 1999, Mr. Spillette departed the District and returned to graduate school at Texas A&M University. He worked as a graduate assistant at the Real Estate Center on campus and published several technical reports as well as articles in the Center’s periodical Tierra Grande. Since obtaining his M.B.A. in 2001, Mr. Spillette has participated in efforts by the Urban Land Institute’s Houston District Council to promote development in Houston’s Main Street corridor.