This Nancy Sarnoff/Chronicle article reports that a joint venture between executives in a California-based entertainment development company and a Texas real estate fund has made a $20 million purchase of three blocks of prime downtown land bordered by Main, Polk, Dallas and Caroline streets (near Toyota Center) for the purpose of developing a retail, condominium and office complex modeled after the Denver Pavilions project. The nascent Houston project’s skeletal website is here.
As an aside, things do appear to be picking up in Houston’s east downtown, which includes Minute Maid Park, the George R. Brown Convention Center, the Hilton Americas Convention Center Hotel and the Toyota Center within a few blocks of each other. This Houston Business Journal article reports that a joint venture of Crescent Real Estate Equities Co. has sold the 27 story east downtown building called 5 Houston Center at 1401 McKinney to Wells Real Estate Investment Trust II Inc. for $166 million That price computes to a nifty $286 per square foot, which Crescent claims is a record for such a sale in Houston.

You know, it’s difficult not having the Joel Osteen Family maid along on those pesky first class trips to Vail to take care of untidiness. The Chronicle story reports the following:

A dispute involving the wife of Lakewood Church pastor Joel Osteen delayed holiday travel plans for a planeload of passengers . . . At least some people aboard the Continental Airlines flight [to Vail, Colorado] were less than pleased after waiting about two hours at Bush Intercontinental Airport while the Osteens left the plane and their luggage was removed, said a woman who witnessed the incident.
“She was just abusive,” said Sheila Steele, who said she was sitting behind Victoria Osteen. “She was just like one of those divas.”

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Pete Pappas, the patriarch and co-founder of the enormously popular, Houston-based Pappas Restaurants, died this past Sunday at the age of 86.
Mr. Pappas’ life is a quintessential Houston business success story. He came to Houston 60 years ago because the city embraces entreprenuers and then became successful beyond his dreams by slowly building a local restaurant empire based on good, reasonably-priced food and efficient, friendly service. It is precisely that kind of spirit and vision that makes Houston such a special place.

The now three year-long criminal investigation into corruption of the City of Houston administration of former Houston Mayor Lee Brown turned another page yesterday as this Southern District of Texas U.S. Attorney press release reports that federal authorities have charged Atlanta, Ga. businessman, Floyd Gary Thacker, with mail and wire fraud charges. Dan Feldstein’s Chronicle article on the indictment is here, and previous posts on the criminal probe into Brown Administration corruption are here.
The implication of the form of the charges against Mr. Thacker — a criminal information rather than a grand jury indictment — is that Thacker is cooperating with prosecutors in the probe. Thacker is accused of bribing former Brown Administration director of building services Monique McGilbra with thousands of dollars in cash and gifts in return for favorable treatment in regard to a city energy services contract. Thacker’s company designed the energy saving system for the city, but the Bill White Administration ultimately canceled Thacker’s contract in 2004 and paid Thacker liquidated damages of $202,000.

Walter Mischer, one of Houston’s best-known real estate developers and banking investors over the past generation, died yesterday at the age of 83 after a long illness. The Houston Chronicle story on Mr. Mischer’s life is here.
Mr. Mischer’s most interesting venture was his acquisition in the 1970’s of the town of Lajitas, near the Big Bend National Park on the southwest Texas border with Mexico. Mr. Mischer initially planned to develop Lajitas into a Palm Springs-type resort, but the remoteness of the location ultimately undermined that plan. Nevertheless, Lajitas over the years has developed into a unique getaway spot in one of the most beautiful areas of the nation.

The Houston Chronicle’s latest story about the University of Houston prompts me to wonder when the local newspaper is ever going to sit up and take notice of the far more important story that impacts Houston’s primary public university in particular and financing of Texas’ public universities in general.
The latest Chronicle story is a slapdash effort that discusses a UH initiative to increase its entry requirements told through the prism of a suburban student’s visit to the UH campus. As is typical of most Houston suburban high school students, UH is a third choice behind the University of Texas and Texas A&M University, and nothing in the visit to the UH campus related in the Chronicle article changed the student’s mind.
However, the Chronicle inexplicably continues to ignore the far more imporant story. Given the relative contributions of UT, A&M and UH to the welfare and economy of the State of Texas, does it really make sense for the University of Houston to have an endowment that is only 4% the size of the University of Texas endowment and only 10% the size of Texas A&M’s? As discussed in this prior post, that is one of the absurd legacies of the obsolescent Permanent University Fund on higher education in Texas, and it is not even mentioned in the Chronicle’s story on UH.
Frankly, rather than dismissing UH as an unattractive choice compared to UT and A&M, a more accurate analysis is that UH is providing far more “bang for the buck” in furnishing a quality educational resource for Houston and Texas at a fraction of the endowed capital of UT and A&M. That the system of funding Texas public universities unfairly deprives UH of the capital that would facilitate a jump to Tier I status is the real story that the Chronicle should be pursuing.

The Chronicle’s Dan Feldstein has been doing a good job over the past couple of years of keeping track of the federal corruption investigation that has been going on in Houston and Cleveland, Ohio. In this article from today’s Chronicle, Mr. Feldstein reports that Nate Gray, the Cleveland businessman who was convicted earlier this year of bribing two former City of Houston officials from the administration of former Houston Mayor Lee Brown, was sentenced yesterday to 15 years in prison and ordered to pay $1.5 million to the Internal Revenue Service. Mr. Feldstein also notes that testimony of an FBI agent during the Gray trial indicates that the corruption probe involving former Brown Administration officials is continuing in Houston.
The two former Brown Administration officials who took the bribes from Gray — chief of staff Oliver Spellman and building services director Monique McGilbra — previously copped pleas in agreeing to testify against Gray and were sentenced to far lesser sentences earlier this year. The Justice Department news release on the Gray sentencing and the corruption probe is here, and the previous posts on this bribery scandal are here.

Former University of Houston chancellor and current J. Paul Getty Trust president Barry Munitz probably didn’t even notice this earlier post regarding his mercurial career in public life.
But I bet even the talented Mr. Munitz notices when the New York Sunday Times dedicates a long article to the current troubles of the Getty Trust.

Longtime Houston independent oil and gas entreprenuer, real estate developer and philanthropist George Mitchell announced jointly with Texas A&M University yesterday that he and his wife Cynthia are donating $35 million to A&M to help build two physics facilities at the university. Jennifer Radcliffe of the Chronicle reports on the donation, which is one of the largest in A&M history. Earlier posts on philanthropic donations of the Mitchells are here and here.
A&M is certainly appreciative of the Mitchells’ generous gift, but what most Aggies want is for Mr. Mitchell to do something about the reeling Aggie football program, which Chronicle sportswriter and former Aggie John Lopez sizes up here and here. Similarly, this caustic San Antonio Express article on the A&M football situation pretty well reflects the Aggie sentiment around the Lone Star State at this particular moment.
The Aggies are currently 16.5 point underdogs in their game at Texas Tech on Saturday. Taking Tech and laying the points may be the lock bet of the year.