P.A. Watson Cemetery (also known as the West Fork Cemetery)
Dateline Arlington, TX: We have seen it many times before. A church or another business entity owns a fairly large piece of undeveloped land inside City Limits. A shale gas operator finds it, makes a deal and...before we know it, everything is ready to go through the approval stages. The City does a little tap dance and all vote in unison for approval. Cities all across the Barnett Shale revere their shale gas deals.
And as we so often find in
shale gasland...there can be many
unknown potholes on the road to that
promised land.
Follow the Yellow Brick Road
The Colony -- An investment group established by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi, a meditation guru who once inspired the Beatles, is apparently hoping that a mixed-use development in The Colony will hasten its plan to establish "heaven on earth."
[...]
Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is credited with bringing transcendental meditation, or "TM," to the world in the 1960s. Transcendental meditation is a meditative technique in which a "mantra" is chanted that aims to nourish creativity and well-being. Today the yogi is said to have 4 million worldwide followers, a global network of meditation centers and universities, his own 24-hour TV channel in Holland and the Maharishi Global Development Fund, which is based in New York City. [emphasis added]
The clock is finally ticking for Hartford's 1960s-era Clarion Hotel, the 12-story eyesore in spooling white concrete worthy of an Eastern Bloc nation that sits in the way of hoped-for redevelopment of Constitution Plaza downtown.
[...]
Instead, exactly nothing happened for the past 15 years, resulting in the haggard, water-damaged wreck that today sits astride Kinsley Street on Columbus Boulevard. Hartford City Assessor Larry LaBarbera recently toured the inside of the building, with flashlights since there's no electricity, and describes it as "totally devastated."
In 2003, the MGDF abandoned plans to build a mixed-use development on about 300 acres in The Colony, Texas, that would have included the world's tallest skyscraper, according to the Dallas Morning News.
Follow the Yellow Brick Road (keep going)
THE COLONY (CBSDFW.COM) - A theme park in The Colony? It could happen.
The city council agenda for Tuesday night’s meeting lists a proposal for a “1.5 billion dollar” development for “a theme park, hotel, convention center, stores, concessions, restaurants and park facilities.”
[...]
Years ago, the Maharishi Global Development Fund wanted to build a 1,600 foot tower on the land.
That skyscraper project never happened, and neither did a separate mixed-use development the group later proposed for the same location. The land is empty now.[emphasis added.]
The video starts after the ad ~ wait about 28 seconds:
We're Almost There
(Pages 229-230)
On March 16, 2012, the Community Development and Planning Department received a letter opposing the zoning case. As the owner’s signature represents only 7.9 percent of the land area within 200 feet of the subject site, approval of this case will not require super majority vote of the City Council.
REQUEST
The applicant requests approval of a Specific Use Permit (SUP) for gas drilling on a 5.035-acre tract of land zoned Entertainment District-Industrial Manufacturing (ED-IM). The property is addressed at 601 Avenue H East; generally located north of Avenue H East and east of State Highway 360.
ANALYSIS
The subject site is currently undeveloped with frontage on Avenue H East. The City of Grand Prairie borders the north of the subject site, while there is undeveloped land to the east, office and
*cemetery uses to the south, and office and gasoline retail uses to the west. The operator plans to drill 14 to 37 wells on the site. However, due to the fluctuating demand of natural gas and market prices, the applicant does not have an estimated timeframe of when drilling activities will be complete.
[...]
(Page 231)
Pipeline Route
The applicant has identified a proposed pipeline from DFW Midstream that will serve the site. The line is an eight-inch Maharishi lateral that will connect to the future Great Southwest Parkway 16-inch lateral.
Enough already. Maharishi Global Development Fund is a non-profit organization with assets of $122,580,646 at the end of 2010. *Watson/West Fork Cemetery, Arlington, TX and Historical Landmark
