Guest Lecturers

On January 28^th my real estate finance class had two guest lecturers.  One was Dr. Harrison, a fourth generation aggie, who inhereted a large piece of land in Boonville City, Texas.  His great grandfather had won the piece of land in a poker game.  Lucky guy.  And now it is being developed and sold for millions by his grandson, and even luckier guy.  The second lecturer was Mr. Gentry who is Dr. Harrison’s lawyer. 

Prior to the development process Dr. Harrison had a tax exemption on the property, only paying $148 in taxes a year.  This is how he talked the city into building a road on the land.  The city wants the land developed because it is loosing out on a lot of money from taxes due to the large plot of land that has the ag exemption on it.  So the city of Boonville spent 1.8 million to build a road on the property, though the back piece of land still has ag exemtion on it.  When Dr. Harrison started to develop the land the first problem was that it may have been a cemetary for freed slaves after the Civil War, this is where you may first see the need to have a lawyer by your side when developing a piece of property.  Holes were dug in search of bodies and when they didn’t find any the development process began.  Dr. Harrison struck a deal with a hotel and then problem number two arrose.  Exxon had a pipeline running across the property that had been moved at one point, and of course when they moved the pipeline, hazardous material was spilled.  This was a costly problem when the hotel that was being built on the land found the spilled oil. 

It is interesting to me how intertwined Texdot is with the development process.  I always thought that developing land was as simple as building on it, but you have to have permission for everything!  I also thought it was interesting to hear Dr. Harrison talk about who would buy the corner lot.  At first he told us that Buc ee’s had approached him and asked him to donate the lot, because they would increase the value of all the surrounding land.  The class was so excited because the guy who started Buc ee’s is an aggie and Buc ee’s is awesome.  Then he told us that he instead went to their main rivals, and sold them the land.  Laughing he said business is business.