Alan Graham

Police had to be called to escort us out of there.

And what happened?

Oh, we were assaulted and spit on.

And it was a news media was there.

And it was a it was a unbelievably horrible experience.

And the next morning, the city council member, the sponsoring city council member, by the way, who is still a friend of mine, a hugging friend of mine, called a press conference to suspend finalizing that lease for 12 months, which put a bullet in the head of that deal.

We regrouped and we began to look at other property.

And one of the other properties that was going to be granted to us was the tract of land that the soccer stadium now sits on, on McCullough Lane.

And then we got the Not My Backyard deal from a large group of people in that neighborhood.

And finally, in 2010, after complete frustration, I went to the then mayor of Austin, Lee Leffingwell, good friend, great guy.

And I said, look, I'm thinking about going outside the city of Austin where there's no zoning.

get in attractive land there, but I need the city to help us with transportation and utilities.

And he looked at me and said, Alan, you may be the smartest person I've ever met in my life, which was a funny thing to say, just a dropout.

And, you know, I mean, I'm not that...

Dumb, but I'm not Stephen Hawking either.

So and and that's what we did.

We went and bought that site where I live today and then bought the site next door to it.

And then the one across the street with some great support, you know, some of our big donors and and.

and really stripped the adjoining neighborhood because there's no zoning.

We had the legal right to develop that property.