Bits of Minutiae: Updates on the former Fairfield Lake State Park
Billionaires gonna billionaire
Since the state gave up on pursuing eminent domain for Fairfield Lake State Park back in December I’ve mostly tried to detach myself from the whole debacle. That said, I do keep a few fingers in the mix because we knew this would be a many years long unfolding, to see what actually becomes of the property and any entanglements that would emerge between the developer and various government officials at all levels. It will be interesting to see what comes out in the wash eventually.
There hasn’t been anything mind-blowing but many “That’s interesting!” tidbits dripping out over the last few months. The most recent starts with an article in the Texas Observer this week by Lise Olsen, The SpaceX Land Swap is Only the Latest Texas Public Park Giveaway. I actually intended to write something here back in March about the TPWD/SpaceX land swap proposal and never did. TPWD held a Special Commission meeting on March 4th to discuss trading 43 acres of Boca Chica State Park with SpaceX for 477 acres in a completely different location, across the bay and near Laguna Atascosa NWR. Here’s the thing: SpaceX doesn’t actually own that property (yet).
As Ms. Olsen writes:
But Commission Jeffery D. Hildebrand, a billionaire businessman appointed by Governor Greg Abbott as chairman of the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, told opponents this hearing wasn’t about their SpaceX concerns but about what he considered a good deal.
He and other commissioners unanimously voted to swap the parkland for the possibility of acquiring another 477 acres that’s fully 10 miles away, across the Brownsville Ship Channel and west of Port Isabel, even though SpaceX doesn’t yet own that other property. (The company proposes to acquire the land and donate it later.) “Through this transaction, we are guaranteeing the conservation of 477 acres, which would otherwise potentially be developed into condominiums or strip centers,” Hildebrand said.
Alejandra Martinez with the Texas Tribune wrote a great article detailing more about the implications from this proposed land swap back on March 4th, from the obvious environmental issues to how it will just further alienate local indigenous groups from accessing sacred areas for fishing and other uses, not to mention the continuous issues those living near SpaceX have had to deal with from the company operating on that sliver of coastal wetland, mere steps from the Gulf of Mexico. (You can see photos from my own trip to SpaceX from 2022 here: A Journey to the Extremes of the Texas Coastline).
What does all of this have to do with Fairfield Lake State Park? Olsen goes on to explain just how much the state has given up over the years with land trades—it ranges from trading 126 acres near Port Arthur for 1280 acres that was donated by Port Arthur LNG so that the facility could use the 126 acres alongside the land it owned to expand their facilities, plus many other similar sized trades that just make the Boca Chica deal look like more of the same old TPWD business. Then there are the other former state parks that have been sold or traded to other entities, such as Kerrville-Schreiner State Park and Bryan Beach State Park, among others where lease agreements were given up due to funding issues such as at Lake Texana State Park. FLSP was just the latest in a series of failures from TPWD and the state, much of which I outlined in January when I talked about how many state parks have been sitting for decades without opening. Oh, and *shocker*, Palo Pinto Mountains State Park isn’t opening this year as previously thought—now it’s 2025.
All I could think when I read the article was that I was glad someone was finally pointing it out more blatantly for the public to see.
Closer to Freestone county and the former FLSP, it appears there was a flurry of activity in the county clerk’s office on March 25, 2024. To back things up slightly, back in September and October we noticed several liens being put against FLG Owner, LLC (Todd Interests’ LLC for their Freestone Club project on the property) by two of the contractors working on the property. Some of them were resolved but one was outstanding for months, from R Construction Co. Then in the Freestone County Times in March, noted among the civil cases from February was R Construction Company v FLG Owner, LLC. How curious! There may have been some chuckles of schadenfreude going around from some of us at that time! It appears that has been resolved, however, as the county clerk documents show that lien of $850,244.24 was released on March 25th.
More interesting on that date is that CMB Infrastructure Group 85 LP, the EB-5 foreign investment business that was funding project, was released of their lien. In place came in new investors, TBK Bank for $75 million, and the one I find even more fascinating, Mirasol Capital Investors Freestone, LLC. It doesn’t take much legwork to trace the last investor to Dallas based Mirasol Capital and billionaire Steve Winn. I saw that name and knew I was familiar with it because it reminded me of something I read last fall in Texas Monthly and I knew this was a Big Deal.
Steve Winn purchased 1400 acres in Hays county on the upper Roy Creek Canyon, west of Austin, one of the last untouched limestone canyons in the region, and upstream and adjacent to, or near the Pedernales River, Westcave Preserve, Hamilton Pool Preserve, and Milton Reimers Ranch Park. Unfortunately, Winn owns a significant chunk of the land around Roy Creek and Roy Creek itself above the two landowners closest to the Pedernales, the Adams family and Askins family. The September 2023 article I read from Texas Monthly chronicles Lew Adams and his fight to preserve his part of Roy Creek from Winn’s proposed Mirasol Springs resort development. But this has been going on for several years now and you can see article after article where Lew Adams is raising alarm bells to what is going to happen to Roy Creek and the rest of that part of the county if the development goes through, no matter how environmentally friendly the project is purported to be.
This is the point where I say, “Sounds like there should have been a Roy Creek State Natural Area here instead.”, and just shake my head as we continue to lose natural resources to billionaire developers wanting to squeeze everything they can out of every last inch of land.
I have no idea what the effect will be from having Winn involved in the Freestone development and what the implications will be for Freestone county and Fairfield. As I said, that stuff is still agitating in the washing machine, and we haven’t even put it in the drier yet to see what shrank, or to see how many red shirts turned the whites pink. All I know is that Lew Adams is raising alarm bells, and we raised alarm bells about the state park, and everyone else just sits on their hands.
I plan on writing something else about the state park and posting it in June for the year anniversary of the closing of the park forever. After that, I’ll share these smaller updates when available. It’s was difficult to move forward at first but I and everyone involved has moved on to other projects, because what else is there to do? We have to still work to hold people accountable and I can only hope other journalists like Olsen will continue to dig deeper and put these pieces out as they unfold. It all ties together in the narrative about our state and how we’ve consistently failed at land conservation in this state for half a century or more.
Everything matters.
Misti writes regularly at Oceanic Wilderness and In the Weeds. She hosts one podcast, Orange Blaze: A Florida Trail Podcast, and recently retired The Garden Path Podcast.
I'll keep saying "Shame on Texas."