UPDATED August 2025: What a difference eight years make. This article was originally published in 2014 and was updated in 2017. We have again updated the links to the relevant agency resources. The question frequently arises for participants in a nationwide construction contracting industry. Simply stated, is a licensed contractor…
On June 20, 2025, Texas Governor Greg Abbott signed Texas Senate Bill 17 (SB 17) into law, reshaping the landscape for global investment in Texas real estate. When the new statute takes effect on September 1, 2025, it will impose expansive state-level restrictions on property ownership through sweeping prohibitions aimed…
In our latest roundup, more office space is being demolished/converted than built, Landingplace Hotels launches two conversation brands, developers cite expenses with low-income housing, and more! A new White House directive aims to accelerate federal permitting and unlock financial incentives for large-scale data center builds, along with related energy and…
Our latest roundup features adaptive reuse in the hospitality industry, falling home prices in major markets, loan maturity in real estate, and more! Builders are ramping up their own venture funding arms, and they’re looking for startups that are commercial-ready, rather than starting out. (Matthew Thibault, Construction Dive) Adaptive reuse…
On June 27, 2025, the Texas Supreme Court issued its long-awaited decision in Cactus Water Services, LLC v. COG Operating, LLC, No. 23-0676, resolving a high-stakes dispute over the ownership of produced water—a vexing byproduct of oil and gas production that is increasingly being viewed as a resource rather than…
Pillsbury’s experience with data centers dates to the dot-com era. Since then, we’ve counseled the industry as proprietary centers were supplemented, and in some cases supplanted, by physical and cloud-based systems of larger dedicated enterprises. The data center landscape is now international in scope and diverse in speciation, with edge,…
On June 9, 2025, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) proposed granting the State of Texas primary enforcement authority—commonly referred to as “primacy”—over the permitting and regulation of Class VI underground injection control (UIC) wells under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). This would authorize the Texas Railroad Commission (RRC)…
In the newest episode of Resilience, Pillsbury’s Shellka Arora-Cox and Brookfield Asset Management’s Brian Callahan discuss one of the most dynamic corners of the energy and infrastructure market: private debt. (Editor’s note: The following transcript has been edited for clarity.) Shellka Arora-Cox: Welcome to Resilience, the podcast where we explore how grit and innovation…
It seems like such a simple question. Who owns data centers? Ownership structures in the digital economy are more varied than might appear on the surface. While the largest computing and cloud service providers, such as Apple, Amazon (AWS), Microsoft (Azure) and Google (Cloud)—also known as “hyperscalers”—do own and operate…
The U.S. Department of the Interior (DOI) announced on May 30 that it will invoke emergency permitting procedures to accelerate environmental review of select geothermal energy projects, with three proposed geothermal projects in Nevada to be among the first projects to undergo expedited review. This action follows President Trump’s January…