{"id":37552,"date":"2014-06-26T09:47:37","date_gmt":"2014-06-26T14:47:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=37552"},"modified":"2014-06-26T09:47:37","modified_gmt":"2014-06-26T14:47:37","slug":"midland-delays-vote-over-energy-towers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2014\/06\/26\/midland-delays-vote-over-energy-towers\/","title":{"rendered":"Midland Delays Vote Over Energy Towers"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h4>\n
\"Midland,<\/a>

James Durbin\/MCT<\/p>

Midland, Texas, sits at the center of an energy revolution transforming the globe.<\/p><\/div>\n

From KXWT West Texas Public Radio:<\/a><\/em><\/h4>\n

After a special session called by Mayor Jerry Morales yesterday, the Midland City Council has\u00a0delayed a planned vote<\/a>\u00a0over its part of the Energy Towers project in downtown Midland.<\/p>\n

The council was set to vote on whether to move forward with a $60 million incentives package for the project\u2019s developers and plans to demolish the former Midland County Courthouse, with the possibility that the city\u00a0might back out of the project.<\/a><\/p>\n

Two council members (Jeff Sparks and Spencer Robnett) couldn\u2019t be at Tuesday\u2019s meeting, but the remaining members appeared encouraged by updates from the developers. The vote has now been pushed back to the council\u2019s next meeting on July 8th.<\/p>\n

Mayor Morales described it as a \u201cgreat\u201d meeting, but again insisted the project needs to move forward immediately or the city needs to move on to other opportunities.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe just cannot sit here and stagnate and wonder all the time,\u201d Morales said. \u201cWe have to have some action.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Originally planned as one 53-story high-rise, the\u00a0redesigned Energy Towers project<\/a>\u00a0would house retail and office space, hotel rooms, an underground movie theater and a new office for the Midland Center and the Midland Chamber of Commerce.<\/p>\n

Morales called Tuesday\u2019s session after growing frustration at the city over a lack of updates and public information from the developer\u2019s of the multi-million-dollar project.<\/p>\n

Wendell L. \u201cScooter\u201d Brown, the Vice President for Energy Related Properties (ERP), one of the co-developers of Energy Towers, said after the session the company has been actively working on its plans for the towers, and if it seems like that\u2019s not the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s been a lot of work going in behind the scenes, that a lot of the public and the counsel [were] not aware of,\u201d Brown said. \u201cWe have been very busy.\u201d<\/p>\n

The\u00a0Midland Reporter-Telegram<\/em>\u00a0live-blogged<\/a>\u00a0details from the session on Tuesday \u2013 according to those reports, ERP President William Meyer said plans for demolishing the former county courthouse have been finalized, and could begin immediately.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From KXWT West Texas Public Radio: After a special session called by Mayor Jerry Morales yesterday, the Midland City Council has\u00a0delayed a planned vote\u00a0over its part of the Energy Towers project in downtown Midland. The council was set to vote on whether to move forward with a $60 million incentives package for the project\u2019s developers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[59],"tags":[105],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37552"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=37552"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37556,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37552\/revisions\/37556"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}