He [Mayor Henry] hopes to improve that mark this year by working more aggressively to improve the economy and to jump-start Harrison Square and other lagging big-money projects started by his predecessor, Graham Richard.

“For those naysayers out there who are criticizing Harrison Square as a bad idea … I’m going to have to take them to task on that. (But) we need to get the hotel finished. We need to complete Harrison Square,” Henry said Tuesday during an interview with The News-Sentinel and NewsChannel 15. “I’m hoping it will be built sooner rather than later.”

Get the hotel finished? It hasn’t even started. Why does the city of Fort Wayne need to complete Harrison Square? Beyond the stadium, it’s a private enterprise project. Hmmm.. makes you wonder if the stench of more subsidized HS welfare is wafting through the 9th floor.

Henry said the city may try to coordinate the effort to obtain financing for the projects by bringing a pool of potential lenders to the table.

Developers say they remain committed to the behind-schedule projects, but some have criticized the city for not doing more to contractually assure their timely performance by the developers. But Henry said penalizing the city’s private partners now might do more harm than good.

“We have fall-back positions, certainly,” he said “But what does that get us, really?”

Fall-back? I can hear it now, let’s rob the city’s light-lease fund, then loan some money to White Lodging so they can complete the project. They can call it Fort Wayne’s economic stimulus plan. After all, we can collect interest on it and then we can also start paying White Lodging the guaranteed profits we promised.

If White Lodging and Barry Real Estate cannot deliver, maybe it’s time to put the call out to other developers and see what ideas they can bring to the table. Maybe that will light a fire under someone’s posterior.

AWB

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