Dallas City Wire

Texas Central Partners has struggled to secure agreements with the bulk of the landowners who are in the proposed route for a high-speed train between Dallas and Houston, the Dallas Business Journal reported.

Eight years after the company's foundation, it still only has options to purchase 30 percent of the land needed to build the high-speed train track. Despite continuing to say that development is coming soon that hasn't come to fruition, according to the Journal.

After COVID-19 struck, Texas Central had to lay off 28 employees and president and CEO Carlos Aguilar told the news agency that the pandemic was having an impact on its financing prospects.

“We had to make some quick decisions on costs and on funding, and we did them with a heavy heart,” Aguilar told the Dallas Business Journal. “As you can imagine, these are not easy things to do. But we had to ensure that we can remain viable and be able to meet all of our obligations.”

Jim Miles and Barbara Miles, owners of a parcel of land that Texas Central wants to buy for the project, told the news agency they would never sell their property, even after Texas Central offered them $367,914 for a 29-acre strip. Barbara Miles said they wouldn't even consider an offer 10 times what they were offered because cutting right through their ranch would cause the entire property to lose value.

The Miles property is only one part of a legal dispute that is currently ongoing and seeks to use eminent domain to seize the properties in its proposed route, the Journal reported. The company is also still attempting to procure $20 billion for the project.

Some of the landowners who have been hounded by Texas Central are calling the company a bully for its constant harassment over the tracts of land, according to the news agency.

“Texas Central is a whole lot worse because they harass you all the time,” Jim Miles told the Journal.

The high-speed train wil provide a 90-minute commute between Dallas and Houston and only has one stop in Roans Prairie. The news agency reported that ticket prices would be similar to airfares, with a one-way fare being priced at or below $100.

The route was created because of growing congestion on Interstate Highway 45, the news agency reported. There were dozens of city pairs considered for the project but the news agency reports that is ultimately what made the decision for Dallas and Houston.

The Reunion Land Assemblage is owned by Hunt Realty Investments and is the site for the future terminus for the high-speed railway line. 

The land was acquired by Hunt in 1975 and was, at that time, 21 acres of unimproved land and 10 acres of air rights in Dallas. The company then traded a portion of the landholdings with the city of Dallas in 2012 for a tract of land known as the former site of Reunion Arena, according to Hunt's website. The land still remains undeveloped.

Hunt Realty Investments did not respond to requests for comment.