The Harrison Shipwreck
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 11/25/08 @ 7:15 pm - Filed Under City Council, Featured
Chris Schoen, CEO of Barry Real Estate, came before the city council tonight to report on the “progress” of the Harrison Square condominium project. Let’s just say there wasn’t a lot of good news (although there was some).
Schoen began by telling council that this market is as bad as he’s ever seen and thus Barry Real Estate has changed their financing package to include a first mortgage for only 50% of the total cost. Despite this reduction in first mortgage debt, Schoen said they have still been unable to secure financing on the project.
Schoen said the strategy moving forward is to try and finalize contracts within the retail portion of the building since banks are currently not lending for condo projects. And if there was a silver lining to Schoen’s presentation it was the progress he cited in the retail portion. Schoen said the following retail tenants were close to signing agreements and would encompass 90% of the total retail space:
- National chain urban grocery/pharmacy store - 12,000 square feet
- Fitness Center - 4k sq ft
- 2 or 3 restaurants (2 sports-themed restaurants are competing)
As for the condo contracts there was no progress to report. Because the project has changed those that have agreed to contracts in the past will have to be revisited. Schoen said they have had a handful of committed buyers that have stuck with them and he felt those buyers are still committed. However, he did not specify what that number was.
The new drop dead date for groundbreaking is Opening Day April 16, 2009 and that will be put into the condo contracts in order to try and strengthen the financing package - “We believe we will deliver on the full promise of Harrison Square,” Schoen said.
This discussion was actually worse than I expected. I thought Barry Real Estate would have some concrete number of condo contracts signed and/or real estate square footage leased. Right now the official number for both of those is zero. Furthermore, I am not convinced that retail leases will be enough to secure the financing they desire.
Hopefully the outlook will change before April 16 but right now this project is stagnant….
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16 Responses to “The Harrison Shipwreck”
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Is it possible that there are zero buyers for the condos?
In this region, you can get a 2500 sq. foot home with a 3 car garage and plenty of space compared to a small condo for the $150K + they are asking for the condo.
I was, and still am, opposed to the project. I certainly want it to succeed, because I’d rather not have to bail out the fools that rammed this up our *** with my tax money. Save that for high-performance government consulting contracts.
So, Jeff…when are “we” all going to have this “I TOLD YOU STINKING SO PARTY” anyway?
If the city only:
A- Waited ONE damn year to start the project.
B- Paid attention to economic trends.
C- Listened to the CITIZENS.
D- Decided on something BETTER for downtown.
E- ALL of the above
April 16th “drop dead” date (cute)…right after the anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic (the 12th)…one word:
IRONY!
;)
B.G.
The Titantic is too big to fail. The rising tide isn’t lifting all boats. Hundreds of jobs are at stake. But we should be able to get her running again with $25 billion in subsidies. If you’re not with us, you’re with the icebergs.
You guys are too negative. There’s still lots of possiblilites here. For example, the right field bullpen could be turned into offices and leased to the Republican Party. The left field wall could be moved way farther out and that bullpen could be converted into a playpen for the Inskeeps and their editorial staff. And in center field they could put up monuments like in the old Yankee stadium to the people who made it all possible.
Well, maybe they should hold off on the monuments.
Well nobody listened to me when I said move the zoo down there!! Didier said the zoo is a great neighbor to all of us North siders. What a load of zebra doo-doo! Get well Dan. Love the new name!!
Who has a copy of the study they did years ago which the helmke administration did which said people would like apartments downtown NOT condos. We spent $500,000 on that study I’m sure which was good money chasing bad.But of course our lovely government knows better. We had our answer to this mess years ago. who’s to blame, the council who got out while the gettin was good and didn’t run for reelection. Thank sam,john and the boys for this one.
Hay Timraiders…. You can go to the first ball game and thank them in person…. They will all be out on the field and then retreat to the skyboxes to watch over their servents…. Just keep paying your taxes and voting to return them to office…. After that you are on your own to decide what is best for yourself….
J.Q. Hay is something you feed horses, Hey is a way of beginning a conversation with someone you don’t know. just an F.Y.I.
I’m sure the three yes votes for this will be in attendance, Pape, Hines, and Didier. They probably still think this thing is a good idea. I’m sure Sam Talarico Jr., Graham Richards, Tom Hayhurst, and John Crawford will be no where in sight, they’re the other yes votes. With Mayor Richards leading the charge.
Councilman Smith ask Jeffrey Krull from the ACPL a great question. To bad no body paid attention:
He ask how many people come to the ACPL. Krull responded with 1.2 million people. Smith’s thought: if 1.2 million people are drawn to the ACPL and that has brought NO downtown investment, what makes people think 200,000 people will????
A GREAT POINT!!!! to bad no one brought that up.
Tim,
Thanks for the chuckle. I’m assuming you were going for irony when you start your post correcting someone’s homophone error and then concluding your post by making one yourself.
Hay was on purpose as feeding it to the horses….
The intent was to poke, apparently poorly, fun at the way things about Harrison was given to the general public when the project was under consideration. Again, poor humor on my behalf.
BTW, it was not directed at you in the least.
Poor return on humor on my part. My Bad!!!
Hey I tried!! I guess the point was a new stadium. Now its downtown and will only take one police report for attendance to dwindle.
Tim,
“Its” is the possessive form of “it”. You should have typed “it’s”, the contraction of “it” and “is”.
I don’t think crime will be much of a factor. If somebody got shot in the parking lot at a Komets game, I think people would still go. People get arrested at the 3 Rivers Festival, and that doesn’t hurt attendance. Ballpark attendance will simply go down once the novelty wears off.
Just stop.
No more corrections from the grammar police. Everybody makes mistakes every now and then and we don’t need someone scouring the site pointing them out.
If you can understand the gist of the comment then there’s no need to point out the error. I’m going to start deleting future comments by the grammar police…
I was posting before bed and was trying to shorten key strokes. LOL, but loved the corrections.
How many of you guys still believe the “downtown” has a aura of people being scared to go down there? I said when someone gets shot people will stop going to games downtown. I still believe quite a number of people in this town are scared to go downtown or south of downtown. Yes, the first year the stadium will draw more people than usual. i’m sure the city and news media will be there to applaud themselves and say Bravo!! But its year two and after that I want to see how attendance goes. I do believe crime will be somewhat a factor. But then again more people will be downtown with all that will be going on, like the new hotel, condos, entertainment district, ……………OK nevermind.
[...] piled on top of excuse from Barry Real Estate with the latest “drop dead date” being opening day for groundbreaking. Good luck with that. Of course we haven’t heard anything from the hotel developer since city [...]