Looking for a safe place to keep its voting machines after the previous storehouse on Canino Rd. was destroyed in a mysterious fire last year, county officials have at last found the perfect uh, match: a 1980-vintage tilt-wall car-storage facility owned by the estate of a billionaire plaintiff’s attorney who died in a car crash. No harm came to the $250 million worth of cars John M. O’Quinn kept in this warehouse at 11525 Todd Rd. after he was killed in an accident on Allen Parkway 2 years ago, but the building was available. One of 3 suites in the 123,930-sq.-ft. structure near the Hempstead Highway and 34th St. currently serves as the black-box home of the Houston Academy of Dramatic Arts. The county is paying O’Quinn’s estate $4.35 million for the facility, with some of that money coming from the fire-insurance claim. Also moving into the building, after a $2 million renovation: county tax assessor-collector Don Summers and his collection of old license plates and tax records.
- County voting machines find a home [Houston Chronicle]
- Warehouse blaze still a mystery and Police: O’Quinn driving nearly twice the speed limit [Houston Chronicle]
- Voting machine fire not arson [Houston Politics]
Photo: LoopNet
“No harm* came to the $250 million worth of cars John M. O’Quinn kept in this warehouse..”
*Except for the contested auction of said vehicles. No amount of time spent on your back in them makes you an owner, apparently.