City Caution is Welcome
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 4/21/09 @ 11:35 pm - Filed Under Local Politics
I’m glad to hear that the Hartland group claims to have financing for the Superior Row project. But it’s also good to see that the city is learning from previous mistakes:
The Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission on Monday declined the proposal submitted by Hartland Development of Fort Wayne. The rejection was a legal formality because the developer wants to pay only $1 for 8,000 square feet of land the city has valued at $65,335.
Leatherman said the city would not sell the land to the developer until it has proof construction would begin.
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I assume all have seen the call by Councilman Shoaff for a renegotiation of the Hardball deal. Since they are already in default(condos must be completed by July which is now impossible)they have up to 90 days to “cure the default” or they owe the City $5000 per day until the project is completed.
There is a real problem with government artificially stimulating the economy. For some unknown reason when government decides they know best how to spend other people’s money, things go astray. They take money that thousands of people would have decided where it goes ( low risk) and dedicates it to one entity like Hardball capital (high risk). The concept is to revitalize downtown. The problem is do the people want to revitalize downtown and what does revitalize mean?
In the case of Fort Wayne, they see no problem in subsidizing the Grand Wayne Center or giving tax abatements to companies. When they do this they reduce the share of funds needed to fund general government, resulting in an increase in taxes for the rest. When was the last time or even the first time the City of Fort Wayne made a smart investment?
Now they may be considering selling property worth $65K for $1, what are they idiots or conspirators? There is also a $5,000 per day fine that they want to renegotiate. If they had a problem with this clause, then why did they not renegotiate the terms prior to signing. There must have been some reason for the clause to begin with. Was it to recapture the cost of the project due to delays? Keep in mind the hotel, condos and shops were all part of a package deal. They entire project was to “revitalize” downtown, increase property values so downtown property owners could pay more property taxes to pay for this artificial stimulus.
Maybe the mayor should stop and think about gambling downtown. Hasn’t Fort Wayne gambled enough already?