Sheffie Kadane When we broke the news Wednesday about Angela Hunt’s memo to Mayor Tom Leppert, she was still in the process of gathering signatures — despite having the five needed to force a council briefing on the Dallas County Appraisal District’s new commercial valuations. She ended up with most…
Your Texas Rangers are no longer the worst team in baseball, as Colorado and San Diego have struggled mightily with 12-21 records after fighting it out for the National League wild card last season. But despite winning five of its last seven games, Texas is still tied with Detroit and…
Brian Harkin Anne Raymond and Harlan Crow of Crow Holdings In response to yesterday’s big announcement that the city will be getting into the hotel business, Harlan Crow fired off his third missive to Mayor Tom — which we’ve gotten our hands on to share with the Friends of Unfair…
As we pointed out earlier, the city council’s Economic Development Committee met in executive session this afternoon regarding the convention center hotel. After more than two hours behind closed doors, the committee — sans Mitchell Rasansky — actually recommended public ownership of the hotel. And, despite developers offering the use…
View Larger Map Developer Larry Hamilton, founder and CEO of Hamilton Properties Corporation, is one of many landowners facing a fight with the Dallas Central Appraisal District regarding its new appraisals of downtown properties. Hamilton recently purchased a parking lot at 1114 Wood Street as a potential site for his…
As expected, the new appraisals from the Dallas County Appraisal District on 13 parcels owned by Chavez Properties was a small sample of a massive increase in appraised values downtown. A random sampling of downtown appraisals, conducted using DCAD’s Web site, shows a consistent revaluing of parcels from $30 and…
The impact from yesterday’s big news about the massive increases in downtown land values by the Dallas Central Appraisal District will not be fully realized until other appraisals are released in coming days. But two distinctly different schools of thought have emerged, along with both sides playing the blame game…
Mayor Tom Leppert returns from China tomorrow, and he might not get much of a chance to sleep off his jet lag. It’s likely that in coming days, the mayor can expect sarcastic thank-you notes from downtown property owners whose property values — and property taxes — are about to…
Psychic and best-selling author Sylvia Browne has spent decades talking to people throughout the world, but she decided to quit the lecture circuit and is celebrating with her farewell tour: Temples on the Other Side. If you’re lucky, you might be one of the audience members randomly selected to ask…
View Larger Map After last week’s big non-vote by the city council on the land acquisition for the convention center hotel, the topic was revisited briefly during the afternoon open microphone session. It turns out that as I was writing my wrap-up of the discussion here at Unfair Park HQ,…
It’s less than a month into the baseball season, and the Texas Rangers have already hit rock bottom. Texas is tied with the Washington Nationals for the worst record in the bigs at 7-19, and team president Nolan Ryan is scheduled to meet this weekend with a different Washington (Ron)…
Chris Epp walked onto Stevens Park Golf Course in West Oak Cliff nearly a year ago for a day of golf with his co-workers. Although their visit was for pleasure, Epp couldn’t help but notice a business opportunity lurking ahead. “On the first hole, I looked up, and there was…
TomLeppert.com Apropos of nothing, here’s our newest favorite photo of the mayor, with his newest lil’ buddy, Andy Hardy. As Schutze mentioned earlier, the non-vote on the Dallas Area Rapid Transit board appointment highlighted the craziness at today’s city council meeting. The other big item of the day was a…
View Larger Map After reading yesterday’s story about the new aloft (yes, it’s a lowercase “a”) hotel project near the convention center, we called developer Larry Hamilton, founder and CEO of Hamilton Properties Corporation, to get the scoop on his latest project — and, just maybe, shoehorn in some questions…
Dr. Heywood Sanders In this week’s paper version of Unfair Park, we dig deep into the convention center hotel controversy at City Hall. Mayor Tom Leppert’s dream of building a hotel using public money will come closer to reality when the city council votes next week whether to approve financing…
There was a buzz March 12 at Urban Market, and it had nothing to do with the beer and wine samples at the front of the store. Downtown residents were gathering near the meat and cheese section, where chairs were set up in front of a microphone. An elderly couple…
We are so getting the council members a copy of this book before April 23. At the end of February, the Dallas City Council approved plans to move forward with using certificates of obligation to purchase land that is likely to be used as the site for a convention center…
It’s been a week since Mitchell Rasansky was fitted for a muzzle. Turns out, though, he’s not the only one unhappy with his being shut out from the discussions surrounding the proposed convention center hotel. Enter Anne Raymond, who has worked for the Crow family (owners of the Hilton Anatole…
As Schutze pointed out earlier, Trey Garrison posted his thoughts on FrontBurner about a zoning case involving City Plan Commissioner Neil Emmons — something about him being a Blue Meanie or some such. I’ve been following this issue as well and came up with a different perspective, mostly because I…
The city’s plans to go ahead with that convention center hotel came closer to fruition today as Mitchell Rasansky, a major critic of the project, was told by city attorneys this morning that he can no longer vote on or discuss anything related to the proposed hotel because of a…
Last year’s efforts from Jon Voight and Dustin Hoffman included Bratz and Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium, both of which were major flops at the box office and were blasted by critics. Who woulda thought seeing Voight play a principal in a movie based on dolls and Hoffman play a 243-year-old…
Courtesy Scott Dorn Sooner than later, the zoning case involving the Signature Pointe Apartments should be cleared up, far as you know. The Fairfield Residential zoning case involving the Signature Pointe Apartments, which was chronicled in the paper version of Unfair Park, took one step closer to approval at Wednesday’s…
