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Sunday, May 7, 2000

Movers and shapers
With each land sale, brokers set a course for city's growth
By Andrea Jares
Caller-Times

David Pellerin/Caller-Times

The real estate deals made by Alfred Edge (left) and W.L. Bates (right) have helped shape Corpus Christi. Edge has sold thousands of homes and founded a real estate school. Bates sold the land under several of the refineries as well as downtown landmarks, including One Shoreline Plaza. The Corpus Christi Association of Realtors recently honored them along with the late Fred Quaile and John Tompkins for their influence on the city's growth.

At the closing table, there's more on the line than a land sale. The transaction can start a chain reaction of future real estate deals and, in turn, shape the city and its economy.
   Behind most of these transactions are real estate agents and brokers, whose stories lend credence to the real estate saying that "Under All Is The Land."
   Last week, the Corpus Christi Association of Realtors honored four members who have had significant influence on the city's development. They include the developer of South Padre Island, a large-volume land seller who placed much of the port's industrial skyline, a seller of thousands of homes, and the founder of the city's first real estate office, who later helped catalogue essential real estate information into one book.
   They are island developer John Tompkins, commercial and industrial landman W.L. Bates, home seller Alfred Edge and realty pioneer Fred Quaile.
   "All four of them not only developed a lot of Corpus Christi and South Texas, they sold a lot of it as brokers," said Foster Edwards, CEO of the association. "All four of them had a hand in putting in commercial subdivisions and residential subdivisions, creating the city."
   If Bates hadn't once shown Alabama mall developer Jim Wilson empty land near the Padre Staples Mall and successfully pieced together fragments of land into one deal, Sunrise Mall might have been built on Old Brownsville Road far off to the west. Bates and Wilson were driving through the city as a last-minute afterthought when Wilson spied the site, Bates said.
   In 1981, Sunrise Mall opened. The 700,000 square feet of additional retail space later contributed to the growth of residential communities nearby and established that area of town as a retail center.
   Santa Fe might have been a street that continued parallel to a dirt road called Ocean Drive had Tompkins not intervened. Today, the street stops abruptly at the property line of Seaside Memorial Park. Tompkins, owner of the property, took his protest to the extent of burying a John Doe at the property line, in the path of the proposed street. A law that prevents exhuming a body without notifying the next of kin prevented the progress of the street, said Frank, his son.
   But John Tompkins is best known for his dedication to the enjoyment of Padre Island. He bought the land and developed the south end of the island. He also urged Congress to set aside a majority of the island for a national seashore.
   Developments in the city such as the expansion of refineries influenced job growth and spurred service and support industries. A real estate institute founded by Edge influenced generations of local real estate agents. Also, his hand in moving the Corpus Christi Country Club from the west to the south part of town had an impact on residential development.
   "It certainly had an impact on how the city developed," Edwards said. "If the country club had been put on Airline instead of Everhart, the city would have developed differently. What happens is a residential subdivision goes around a golf course and then, of course, you have the commercial things that support the residential subdivisions.
   "Everhart developed out past Saratoga before any other street did. If you think about it now, there's more stuff out Everhart than there is out Weber, out Staples, out Airline. And I think you could say that that's because of the country club."
   The achievements of these Realtors illustrate how closely all people are tied to real estate, Edwards said.
   "Alfred Edge, W.L. Bates, they are the grandfathers of the current real estate community. Every commercial Realtor looks up to W.L. Bates and every residential Realtor looks up to Alfred Edge."
   The influence of real estate is not only seen on maps. For example, it doesn't take six degrees to separate the average Corpus Christi agent from Alfred Edge. Through the Hall Institute he founded and his long-term real estate office on Staples Street, many agents have either studied under him or worked for him. Still, many area residents know him as the man who sold them their house.
   No figures are available on how many houses Edge has sold, but the association's estimate is 15,000.
   Bates, whose commission checks are sometimes as large as other agents' entire property sales, has a Corpus Christi map on the wall of the conference room in his Carancahua Street office that has the properties his company has sold highlighted in yellow. The map looks like a checkerboard. When Bates stands in front of another map of the Corpus Christi Ship Channel, he uses broad, sweeping motions to indicate the land he has sold over the years.
   "A lot of transactions that go on in the port area influence the city, but they're not as widely known by the public as, say, a shopping mall," Edwards said. "But when 1,000 acres gets sold and a refinery gets put on it, what does that do for the city?"
   Fred Quaile saved many real estate agents information-gathering trips to the courthouse by consolidating the information into one source. Now the information is available on computer, but the book he helped write helped real estate agents access lots of information available at the courthouse.
   The real estate professionals who shaped the past see important places to watch for the next changes in land development.
   Bates sees the growth of the city to be hinged on the Joe Fulton International Trade Corridor, the growth of the airport and the dredging of Packery Channel.
   "The Joe Fulton Corridor is really important," Bates said. The industrial road to be completed in 2005 would open additional acres of land with deepwater access on the north side of the port.
   Getting new flights to the airport would also help the city grow, said Bates, formerly on the airport board.
   "I always think the airport is the most important thing to get Corpus Christi on the map," he said. "You don't come to Corpus Christi accidentally.
   "The airport is so important to the future growth of this area, especially if they're going to get the container units at the port. We need planes big enough to carry containers into Corpus Christi and into Mexico to tie it all together."

   John Tompkins
   The late John Tompkins was a developer who loved Padre Island so much that sometimes he traveled over the wooden, single-lane precursor to the JFK Causeway to sleep on the beach. He would take trips by boat to the deserted tip of South Padre Island to look at the land, said his son, Frank, who is also in the land business.
   So it seems fitting that his place in local real estate history can be credited with developments that enhance the attractiveness of South Texas to millions of tourists. One of his achievements was persuading Congress in 1958 to preserve 133,000 acres of Padre Island that would become the Padre Island National Seashore. Another was development of the south tip of the island in the 1950s, laying the groundwork for its successful development today.
   Tompkins wanted to own the 5-mile tip of land to the south of the island, but the land was occupied by a company that had gone bankrupt. Tompkins set out to find the company stockholders. He traced and bought most of the stock, spending his life savings on the land, his son said.
   "He started buying up the stock of the defunct corporation and he tracked that stock through poker games and the bottom of cedar trunks, and he had to pay for some and some people just gave it to him," Frank Tompkins said. "He got 80 percent of the stock and went to the courts and they declared him the owner."
   Tompkins studied the way Miami Beach was developed. He designed in plenty of public access to the beach and refused to allow houses on stilts to avoid the perception that the area flooded, Frank Tompkins said. Roads and a bridge that linked the island to the mainland were boosts to the island's development.
   When Tompkins died in 1969 at age 75, South Padre Island was growing steadily, but the resort hotels and high-rise condominiums wouldn't come for a few years after his death. But Frank Tompkins said his father was the first to envision them. When he hired a commercial artist in 1956 to draw the South Padre Island of the future, the drawing that emerged looked similar to today's skyline.
   Frank Tompkins doesn't know why his father chose to develop on the south side of the island rather than the north. But he can offer insight on why South Padre emerged ahead of the north end. While his father took a slow and steady approach to developing the land, developers on the north side wanted to sell the land quickly, using a land sale promotion. The buyers were speculators who would rather hold the land than develop it, Frank said.
   "He wanted this to be a part of him. He didn't want to just sell it, turn it and flip it," Frank Tompkins said of his father, who was also a World War I veteran and semipro baseball player. "It was more than just a money project for him."

   W.L. Bates
   W.L. Bates has made a career of piecing together patchwork quilts of land to seal multimillion-dollar deals on property suitable for large company operations.
   Some of his success stories include putting together 3,000 acres on the North Corpus Christi Bay from National Steel Corp., and assembling 1,600 acres from El Paso Natural Gas. In 1983, he was named one of the top three figures in Texas real estate for threading together 3,000 acres next to the Corpus Christi Ship Channel for Baker Marine Corp.'s large offshore service center.
   He sold the land under such local economic engines as Equistar, OxyChem and most of Koch Petroleum Group. As Bates was involved with the expansion of the refineries, he was also involved in selling the residential homes in nearby neighborhoods such as Oak Park.
   Bates pieced land together from H.E. Butt Grocery Co. and the late Blanche Moore to create the $30 million site for Sunrise Mall.
   "It had a major effect on the direction the town grew," Bates said. "Moore Plaza and all kinds of stuff went in around it."
   The real estate that he sells is a visible indicator of the shape the economy has taken. From selling the land where Aker Gulf Marine produces the high-profile projects such as the record-breaking oil derrick called Bullwinkle. Or selling that land that becomes an army base and employs hundreds.
   Bates sold the sites for several landmark bayfront buildings, including One Shoreline Plaza.
   "Some of them, I've bought two or three times. If I ever sell it again, I'm not going to buy it back."

   Alfred Edge
   Alfred Edge's career in selling residential real estate has gone in tandem with the economy of Corpus Christi for the past half century.
   He first started selling homes when the most prestigious addresses were on the west side of town, near the old country club. Oak Park connoted prime real estate, not an area earmarked as a buffer zone around the refineries. Saxet Heights, which borrows its name from the reverse spelling of the state, was the place Realtors pointed potential homeowners who wanted the very best.
   "When I went into the real estate business, one of the nicest places to live was Saxet Heights," said Edge, 83. "Oak Park, Saxet Heights - boy, that was the place to live." Other areas where he sold houses have increased in value substantially. "In Lamar Park, for instance, I sold one of the new houses over there for $18,500!" Edge said.
   No one knows how many houses Alfred Edge has sold, but the sales followed the expansion of the city into the cotton fields beyond Louisiana Street.
   The city pushed south rapidly with the placement of the Naval Air Station, a property sold by Bates. "When the Naval Air Station moved in, it changed south side Corpus Christi. And that's good for us," Edge said. "As the town grew, the trend was to head south."
   While people are still buying houses, real estate has seen better times in his career, Edge said. Still, he remains a committed optimist.
   "If I think about how bad it is now as compared with other times, then I get a little bit depressed. But there's business out there today and somebody's going to get it - and my company's going to get it."
   The way real estate was sold also changed with Edge. He was one of the first employers of women to sell real estate in the city. He was the founder of the Hall Institute, a real estate school that trained many of today's real estate agents. Those who did not learn at the school might have learned from working at one of his 12 branch offices in the area.
   Edge, who still answers the phone as if every caller were a close friend, insists that he will keep close contact in the real estate business from the maroon leather chair in his Staples Street office. "Now, when am I going to retire? Never," he said with a smile. "You see my chair right here? More than likely, I'll die in this chair."

   Fred Quaile
   The late Fred Quaile is noted for opening the first real estate office in downtown Corpus Christi in 1921. The company was successful in persuading Reynolds Metals Co. to locate its alumina plant on the north shore of Corpus Christi Bay instead of Houston.
   Quaile was a charter member of the organization, when it had fewer than 100 members. He was also a three-time president and a director of the Texas Real Estate Board. He organized Corpus Christi's first building and loan association.
   "He was very well known throughout the state as a Realtor," said his son-in-law, Joe McManus, who now operates the company. The People's Street office is decorated with indigenous birds and a framed, fading photo of the founder.
   "His contribution to Corpus Christi development is a matter emphasized by capital investments of over $210 million on properties assembled by his firm," McManus said.
   He was a mover in the development of the downtown area during the 1930s, '40s and '50s. He also brought firms such as JC Penney, Kress, Walgreens, Sears and Montgomery Ward to downtown, he said. Quaile also was a developer of the Oso Beach Municipal Golf Course and surrounding subdivisions such as Edgewater Terrace.
   As the city moved south, his company helped develop the city's then-premiere shopping center, Parkdale Plaza, in 1957. Quaile sold real estate for more than 50 years. He died in 1975 at age 79.


Business writer Andrea Jares can be reached at 886-3678 or by e-mail at jaresa@caller.com

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