The Harrison Bait & Switch
Posted by Jeff Pruitt - 8/21/09 @ 8:54 am - Filed Under Featured, Local Politics
So after all this time of floundering and bamboozlement the best idea the city and Barry Real Estate can come up with is to create more office space? In a downtown that is already littered with nothing but vacant office space that’s the best they can do - really?
Let me just say that is flat out unacceptable. We paid the first group of consultants to tell us how much we needed more residential downtown. Then we paid another consultant to tell us how great this project was going to be and how it would be the catalyst for residential expansion. Now we’re going to go off the board and develop the very thing that not even a cherry-picked city consultant would recommend - more office space.
Mr. Mayor, please make it go away; don’t be this foolish. We have given millions of dollars to these charlatans from Atlanta and we did so because there was a vision of this project finally being the piece that would bring people not only to visit but also live downtown. We must hold them to that vision.
Screw the $14.5 million number we’ve used to box ourself in. Focus on the end product and renegotiate the other parts of the contract to make up the difference. Having said that I have zero confidence in Barry Real Estate’s ability to get this done. They appear to merely be a fiction of the housing bubble and incapable of operating outside that unsustainable system. It’s probably past time to just cut our losses, sue them and put out a new RFP…
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8 Responses to “The Harrison Bait & Switch”
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Now, Jeff, it sounds to me as if you lack confidence in the cleverness of the Summit City crony-mob. Relax. These are some clever, clever boys. Filthy-dirty, but clever.
You know, there’s always going to be a need for more new office space in the Fort, because we still have one growth industry: local gummint. Once there’s some plush new space available at BallParkOfficePark, or whatever they’ll call it, it will turn out that city government has outgrown its cramped quarters in Renaissance Square, and needs a place where the office windows look out on the afternoon “businessman’s special” TinCraps game. They’ll pay top dollar for that space, much to the delight of some well-connected local real-estate outfit that’ll be handling the lease or purchase or whatever scam they come up with.
It’s all good!
What politicians can dream, most likely will not come true. Some call them visionaries like FDR, Kennedy, Bush Sr./Jr. and others. This is why government should have very little scope. It should not have business development. Look at their track record. What do these people know that you and I don’t? They are not risking their money, but ours with very little say from us. Tim Pape appears to be one of them.
Truly our local city government likes the saying “I am here from the government to help you.”
I think the thoughts going through Pape’s head are more like, “I am here from the government and you’re too stupid to think for yourself, so please shut up and let us vote.”
Honest Abe, I agree. You said it better.
You can add Marty Bender to that list too.
This is another excellent post Jeff.
Switching to office space is laughable and undermines everything the City told us they were trying to do with this project.
Mike Sylvester
Is it too early to say, “I TOLD YOU SO!”
[...] at The Harrison. Recently it was reported that the city was considering using the space next to Harrison Square as retail/office space instead of the original plan of retail/condominiums. This caused quite a stir in the community so I wanted to hear from Leatherman directly to figure [...]