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Saw a profile of this idea in Texas Monthly. The person heading this is working on commissioning a study for development to be funded through a kickstarter page. They have surpassed their goal of $71k and are now at almost $82k. https://www.texasmonthly.com/arts-entertainment/texasland-theme-park-houston/ “I realized that Texas broadly, and Houston specifically, has all the metrics that my team look[ed] for: a massive and burgeoning population, a business-friendly environment, and, from the content side of things, a unique identity.” Houston hasn’t had a theme park since Astroworld closed in 2005, a decision McGee reminded me was made because the park sat on Six Flags’ most valuable land, which the company chose to sell, not because Astroworld wasn’t profitable. Here's a broad overview of what they want to do from their kickstarter.

The recent actions from the Texas government has made it increasingly clear that the state has it out for Harris County. Not only with the suspicious state takeoever of HISD (despite an overall decent "B" grade, with plenty of worse off elsehwere in the state), but also the recent laws that have been coming out of state legislature: SB1993 grants the Secretary of State (SoS) the authority to rerun elections "under certain circumstances" for counties with at least 2.7 million people. This bill passed Senate, and is currently in House limbo. Unfortunately, two other bills have made it past House, with only the Governor's pen awaiting... SB1750 abolishes the election administrator position for "counties with 3.5 million or more," returning duties to elected county clerk and tax asscessor. Both positions are currently (D) in Houston, so not a big deal (overreach aside), right .... https://www.democracydocket.com/news-alerts/texas-bill-abolishing-harris-county-election-position-heads-to-governor/ Not so fast! Here's the particularly egregious doozy: SB1933, which grants the SoS the power to seize election authority (administration, voter registration) from local officials, and even suspend and replace them, with nothing more than "good causes to believe in 'problems'". The dooziest part? The bill had a last minute amendment right on the spot in House just to increase the population threshhold way up 4 million... https://twitter.com/DemocracyDocket/status/1661106078518476810 So, why such specific threshholds, hmm? Want to take a guess which is the ONLY county in Texas to fulfill said population thresholds (at least, at time of bill creations)? Moreover, are the purported "election problems" in question not possible STATEWIDE, regardless of population? Oh, and the Secratery of State is actually one of the few Texas positions that is non-elected (instead, appointed by governor) ... and there is NO BURDEN OF PROOF regarding the so-called "causes to believe" in question: clearly not a conflict of interest, right? 🙄 No matter how it is sliced, this is straight up targeting baked into legislature. Way worse than the uproar concerning the "Tennessee Three". The "F-word" not only came out of hiding, it is blatant and blaring its foghorns loud and clear... Note: this thread has political relations, but I posted it here since this forum was more active/livelier, as well as the fact that the particular forum in question (Local, State, Federal politics offtopic) was missing the option to "create a thread."

https://baytownsun.com/local/bayland-island-hyatt-regency-set-to-open-this-week/article_49eb1868-f380-11ed-b5cd-cf24a0ed4dd0.html "Hyatt Regency Baytown-Houston is set to officially open its doors on Thursday and reservations are now bookable online at Hyatt.com. A ribbon-cutting ceremony is set for 10 a.m. Thursday at the hotel site on Bayland Island. The hotel will serve as Baytown’s only full-service waterfront hotel. It will have 208 guestrooms and over 18,000 square feet of meeting and event space."

https://www.bizjournals.com/houston/news/2023/04/21/janis-burke-houston-international-sports-city.html?cx_testId=40&cx_testVariant=cx_27&cx_artPos=4#cxrecs_s "Houston has also been approached to host the Pan American Games, which is larger than the Olympics in terms of the number of athletes and venues, Burke said. The city would be working in unison with the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee to host the event, but it has not yet decided if it would be doing so. “Just to be asked if Houston is interested, it tells you where we are in light of how the world views us for putting on sporting events,” Burke said."

Hello to everyone. I am new to the group and have a facination w/Houston's history. I have recently begun a roster of Bldg's (180+) in the downtwon area {defined as Commerce (100 blk.} to the north, Dowling to the east, Mcilheny to the south & Houston ave. to the west} w/Main str. as the center divder down the middle. I suppose the first question I would like to get settled is just where does So. Main begin? Would it be @ the site where the old M&M Bldg. is? Or @ the corner of Main & Commerce? Or elsewhere? Anyway my interest has been spurned after viewing many photos recently @ the historical Houston page. I absolutly hate the new skyscrapers but will not let that influence any comments or input from others. Like many others I prefer the older {1940-1960} architecture. W/that said I have begun to trace sum history of several Bldg's. I will use the beautiful old Gulf Bldg. as an example. While puting my list of 180 Bldg's together and viewing photos I noticed that the same Bldg. had several different names. So far I have read that the Gulf Bldg. was originally the Texas Commerce Bank (TCB) & that 2day it is the JP Morgan Bldg. What I have not yet concluded was the Bldg. purpose built as a bank and over the intervening years new tenants occupied? Does anyone recall if indeed it was @ one time named the TCB or did they have a separate Bldg. elsewhere down town? One of my goals is to get to the Tax assessor's office and try to examine original tax records for a given parcel ID and along w/that to establish physical address' over the intervening years. That would be a hugh help as those records list the original and subsequent owners. I have also traced sum history for the original Bank of the S/W {now Bank One}, SP's Grand Central Sta. {the 5th depot to occupy that site} & now home to a huge Postal serv. facility, Houston Natural Gas which became the Enron Bldg. and the M&M Bldg. which had sum 600,000 square feet of floor space when it opened in the 30's ( considered a very large Bldg. @ that time) and is now occupied by UH. I would welcome all comments for everyone & will post additional findings in the future. I would also share my list w/anyonw who wishes a copy. It is Excel formatted and a works in progress. Respectfully Danny Mac

I'd been curious about this chain of restaurants for a while but just hadn't created the thread. Does anyone know the background? I seem to recall other restaurants years ago with different names but the same logo and color scheme in their branding. Was wondering if they were owned by the same group or were named by franchisees or something else.

Hi all, I am in the process of buying a home, and during the survey the title company informed me that my house, which is built on the property line, is built onto a five-foot easement that was given to Reliant. There is another five-foot easement adjacent to my house where the power pole and lines are. Basically my question is what is the risk to me? What could potentially happen? This is what is in the easement document: "The Easement herein granted is described as follows: A right of way for electric power distribution and connection to the townhomes constructed to include installation of service poles and overhead wiring and future maintenance and repair of said facilities."