CRE Bridge in Galveston

Tourism-adjacent and port-adjacent, not office parks. Accommodation and food services carries the highest location quotient of any private sector in the county at 1.69, meaning the county is almost 70% more concentrated in hospitality employment than the nation, with 830 establishments and 18,797 jobs as of Q4 2025. Retail trade (912 establishments) and construction (548 establishments, LQ 1.17) are the next-largest bases. The Port of Galveston is a working economic driver on top of that mix. No countywide office, industrial, retail or multifamily vacancy, absorption or cap-rate data is published for Galveston County, so a bridge deal here gets priced on the tenant and the lease in front of us, not a market comp. See the Texas bridge and foreclosure rules for full terms.

It sets a hard ceiling on a single asset's wind coverage. The Texas Windstorm Insurance Association's maximum limit of liability for commercial risks and public buildings is $4,424,000, effective January 1, 2026, with a standard deductible of 1% per item per occurrence and 2% or 5% options. An asset priced above that limit needs excess wind capacity placed on top of TWIA, which is a placement problem before it is a loan structure problem. And the premium itself has to be paid outright: House Bill 2518, effective September 1, 2025, prohibits premium financing on TWIA policies, so budget the wind premium as cash at closing or run it through TWIA's own installment plan, not through a premium finance company folded into the loan.

Plan for a review step before you touch the building. Galveston's locally designated historic districts, including the East End, Lost Bayou, Strand/Mechanic and Silk Stocking districts, sit under the Galveston Landmark Commission, which reviews new construction, rehabilitation, restoration and demolition against the city's Design Standards for Historic Properties. Most projects are handled administratively by city staff; complex cases go to the full Commission. Fee anchors: $250 for Landmark new construction review, $500 for a Landmark demolition review, $50 for a historic site plan review. The city does not publish a review timeline, so ask the borrower up front whether the property sits inside a district and whether staff or the full Commission will review it, and build the answer into the term before you sign off on a bridge schedule.

The sourced signals point that way, though no market-level data confirms it. Fitch upgraded the port's revenue bond rating to A+ from A on August 19, 2026, on roughly $198.5 million in bonds, citing cruise growth and strong financial performance. On July 3, 2026 the port opened a new West Pier 39-40 berth with its first cargo vessel call, and on August 21, 2026 it received $7.4 million in grants toward more than $8.5 million in mobility and safety projects. The port itself describes 24 berths, 307 acres available for development and Foreign Trade Zone No. 36, though those figures carry no publication date on the port's own page and should be treated as the port's claim, not a dated statistic. No countywide industrial vacancy or absorption data exists to confirm how that activity is translating into leasing, so treat the bond upgrade and the new berth as directional, not as a market-level statistic.

25% of value is the working number. We go to 75% LTV on commercial bridge, so on a $2,000,000 Galveston asset that is up to $1,500,000 from us and $500,000 from you (2,000,000 x 75% = 1,500,000). The loan is interest-only for a term of up to 24 to 36 months, and it can be structured as a purchase bridge or a cash-out against equity you already hold. With no countywide cap-rate data published for Galveston County, the value we lend against comes from the tenant and the lease, not a market comp. Subject to underwriting.

No minimum score on this program. Commercial bridge is asset-based, so credit carries far less weight than it would at a bank. We do run it, and weaker credit is usually handled with lower leverage rather than a decline, but there is no hard credit pull to start and no W-2s or tax returns to qualify. On a Galveston deal the file is far more likely to turn on the lease, the wind binder and, inside a historic district, the Landmark Commission's scope of review. Subject to underwriting.

Up to $10 million, interest-only, on a term of up to 24 to 36 months. Worth knowing before you size a Galveston asset that big: TWIA's maximum limit of liability for commercial risks is $4,424,000, effective January 1, 2026, so anything priced meaningfully above that needs excess wind capacity placed on top of the state pool before the loan can close. That is an insurance placement to start early, not a term to negotiate late. Subject to underwriting.