Written by our own Kerrierieo
Pearce Lane, Del Valle, Texas
Location, location, location. That’s the million dollar question. Not just tonight, but since the official FIA announcement on May 25, 2010. We’ve speculated, hemmed & hawed, and debated about publishing this post. But the location announcement news today got the best of us and we thought we might as well make public our research and guesses.
I’ve always enjoyed the “detective work” related to real estate transactional work. I (kerrierieo) have fond memories of amazing my coworkers with my creative research skills and providing them with assembled information that they did not even know was publicly available. I spent a lot of time at the Travis County Clerk’s office scanning through microfiche (microfiche!? Oh yeah!) and befriending the guys behind the counter who printed my maps for me. It’s surprisingly not that difficult to continue the research from Chicago, Illinois either. Which is unsettling in a way but another commonplace technological marvel.
Okay, enough of me rattling on. How did we get here? We know a guy who knows a guy who knows “The Guy” (Tavo, for those of you just joining us) who gave us this bit: “the track is going to be down by 183, 130, and 45, near Mustang Ridge/Creedmoor.”
I’ll save you the entire 4+ hour long Gchat session Kevin and I had, but it went like this:
- I googled 130 and 45.
- I switched from “Map” to “Satellite” mode.
- I looked at land.
- I looked at streets.
- I saw 650 acres owned by the State of Texas off of Pearce Lane.
- I started plugging addresses on Pearce Lane into Travis CAD.
- I started plugging owner names from Travis CAD into SOS records.
- I looked up surrounding parcels on Travis CAD.
- I set my heart on Pearce Lane, and that is where my prediction lies.
Some of my favorite parts of our chat:
Me explaining how I work this:
me: I think in this case since you have a very specific area in mind, it's easiest to start searcing CAD by street addresses
like find a street via google maps, then make up a street # and plug that into CAD
then from there you can look at related maps
and plug in other addresses or start to see familiar or reoccuring names
Kevin: sort of, I don't know the exact location and it seemed easier to look at parcel shape, size, and location for the types of consideration a new structure would need
me: (it's like a puzzle and could be time consuming)
Kevin: like proximity to roads, housing,etc
I know
Trying to draw visible connectors:
me: let me
http://www.traviscad.org/travisdetail.php?theKey=130505
look at that plat map & allll the land owned by COA around it
wtf would coa do w/all that land
Kevin: the city owns tons of extra land
me: and it lists "deed date' blank which bothers me
Kevin: they sell it to raise money
me: hm
Kevin: i've seen a lot of that actually
me: like maybe the state bought it from the city
Kevin: especially land own by a trust
me: or the city is holding by trust
LOL
Kevin: no
haha
just other parcels I've seen
me: 4,574,985.00 value
i feel like this is our area
u can call me if ud rather chat
i'm eating my lunch
interesting.
so the other big plats on pearce road, some of them are owned by 4-D partners LP
4-D partners is a partnership with Pete Winstead, the founder of Winstead, PC,
Kevin: was that the one you sent me before
me: a law firm in the frost tower
Kevin: oh
me: so, we need to find out if winstead is attorney of record for anyone involved with this
i think i saw somewhere...hold on
hmm.
back in may when i searched "full throttle productions" on the SOS website. came up with the company's information. they just filed a certificate of amendment yesterday changing the general partner to "tevo hallmund, inc." as the general partner. filing attached
their mistake, because they faxed the filing in, and their attorney's fax information is now stamped at the top of the page: Ewing & Jones, PLLC.
but winstead is a bigger firm than ewing
they could be representing the landowners
Kevin: umm, interesting
I follow you but I can't attempt to draw strong connections myself
is that common?
me: why would the founding shareholder of a law firm buy 4.3MM in land
i dont know i'm just rambling
thinking out loud
Kevin: good point
me: wait a second
this LP was just formed on april 27 2010
do u think they formed the LP, got the $$ and bought the land in 1 month
well i guess i can answer that
it's totally possibl;e
yeah i'm rambling
that's only
129 acres
Kevin: of course it's possible
So that’s a little background on the Location Conversation we’ve been having over the past month. Take it at face value and we’ll chat with you in a few short hours!