Need an excuse to get away? Our first-ever Dallas Fort Worth Breakfast & Schmooze on the State of the Market there is next Thursday, April 15. All-star cast includes Haynes and Boone's Rick Martin, Behringer Harvard's Robert Aisner, Granite Properties' Michael Dardick, and more. We'd love to see you at the Renaissance Dallas. Crazy low $39. Sign up now!

  The deciding vote came through on Wednesday: the Dynamo are getting their stadium. The Houston City Council approved an interlocal agreement that sets the framework for how the facility will be financed, constructed, and operated.   We met with East Downtown Management District’s Tina Araujo on the stadium’s site. (Unfortunately for blooper reels, those hills will be removed before its April 1, 2012 completion.) She tells us the agreement involves the Sports Authority, City of Houston, and Harris County, which votes Tuesday, but Tina expects it’ll clear since the city met all county requests.) TIRZ money will be used in its standard capacity—public infrastructure improvements—and no city or county money goes to building the stadium itself. The Sports Authority will manage construction and operations after completion, and the city and county will jointly own the land. The Sports Authority will negotiate a lease with the Dynamo; TSU will be a major subtenant and use the stadium for home games. The Dynamo agreed to offer “sufficient affordable family seats” and provide “dedicated use days” for the city and county.

Architect Populous’ rendering. Under the interlocal agreement, funds from both the city and county will be dedicated to “ensure $1M annually for support of ‘homeless’ initiatives (for every $2 raised by the COH, $1 will be provided by Harris County),” and two new TIRZes were created. Tina tells us the mayor created the zones (one in northeast downtown stretching from Austin to 59 and a large one encompassing the Reliant park area, including the Astrodome and the old Six Flags land) at the request of Harris County but has stated the city won’t participate financially in them now. The land will be turned over to the Dynamo on October 1 for construction.

SPOTLIGHT ON MULTIFAMILY: SITUS   Situs’ David Malev and Will Moss repped a North Carolina-based lender in the sale of the distressed Bayou Bend Apartments to the Houston-based Hope For Families. The non-profit got an acquisition loan from the City of Houston’s Housing and Community Development’s Neighborhood Stabilization Program (a multifamilial mouthful), which gives money to developers to renovate or redevelop dilapidated multi- or single-family properties. Bayou Bend’s been vacant since the previous owner’s loan default in ’08, and Situs was brought in after it was foreclosed in ’09. The COH Building and Standards Commission ordered that the facility be repaired or demolished, so there’s a lien on the property until that’s accomplished. David and Will tell us finding someone willing to accept the property with it attached was a challenge.

Also difficult was working with a busy out-of-state lender: it hadn’t seen the property, had an old appraisal, and didn’t know the condition. David and Will took on the role of asset manager; besides normal marketing and disposition, they got a power of attorney, selected a contractor and secured the property, attended hearings, and worked with the police and City of Houston. Hope For Families plans to redevelop the 2.8-acre tract to lower-density affordable multifamily housing. They tell us there was a lot of local pressure to close the deal because the property had become a haven for vagrants and animals. David focuses on distressed multifamily projects and tells us right now he’s working on a contract for a Class A property with a very complex ownership structure.

MAINTENANCE MANIA!   We can’t even fix our faucets, but at the Houston Apartment Association’s fourth annual Maintenance Mania Wednesday, we learned some people can fix them awfully fast. Above, we snapped Kaplan Management’s Ginger Posey (black shirt) and Asset Plus’ Stephanie Graves (white shirt at the back table) demonstrating how the competitions worked. 194 participants from multifamily complexes around the area (that’s an HAA record, by the way) competed for the chance to go onto the national event with an all expenses paid trip to New Orleans. They had to compete in all eight categories to qualify: door jamb, ceiling fan, faucet installation, appliance repair, lockset re-key, toilet repair, smoke alarm, and race car. Cash prizes went to the winner of each event.   Curious how race cars fit in? Competitors built their own using only what they had on hand in their maintenance closets. (Our favorite is the caulking gun on wheels with paper flames shooting out the back.) In the red shirts and tan caps, members of team Tarantino Properties, which won for most competitors this year.   The event also attracted self-proclaimed groupies, like these ladies from Gables. Gables Memorial Hills might be ringing some bells; the new property won its architect Ziegler Cooper the Multi-Housing News Design Excellence Award for the midrise category, and two weeks ago it was sold to CA-based CIM Group.   Some changes from last year: National sponsor HD Supply’s James Batterton and Norma Ledbetter (who was coincidentally wearing a yellow shirt—any other Pearl Jam fans out there?) tell us two new markets are will send competitors to the National Apartment Association’s event. And Rudy from Greystar (we didn't get a last name because, as you can see, he was focused), who works at Midtown Arbor Place complex, let us know there were some new events added, like the lockset re-key we snapped him doing. It featured a new type of lock; the Kwikset Smartkey, which allows managers to rekey the lock rather than replace it.