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Alan Hassenflu Plays the Waiting Game

Jennifer Dawson
Houston Business Journal

Alan Hassenflu of Fidelis Realty Partners must be a very patient man. If not, he’s certainly getting a lot of time to practice that virtue.

The commercial real estate developer announced two years ago that he wanted to build his first-ever single-family residential community.

Hassenflu’s firm acquired 412 acres of vacant land in the Clear Lake area in June 2007 for the project. He wanted to develop a gated community for as many as 1,000 high-end homes and roughly 50 acres worth of office, medical office and retail space.

The deal definitely proved that Hassenflu is a risk-taker. The land he bought was prohibited from ever going residential, thanks to a deed restriction from former owner Exxon Corp. (now Exxon Mobil Corp.).

Hassenflu was sure at the time that he could successfully negotiate with Exxon to modify the old restriction.

But more than two years have passed and Hassenflu is still in a holding pattern. He told me this week that he’s been working this entire time to reverse the restriction on his land.

Maybe the recession is buying him some time. He probably wouldn’t have launched a new community during today’s economy anyway, but it would probably be nice to know he could if he wanted to.

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