Posts Tagged “Harrison Square”

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

I found this article, published way back in 2002.

Who Killed Downtown?

What does a living downtown look like?

All day there are pedestrians along the streets, and even more in the evening.

Commerce thrives, from department stores to quirky little one-of-a-kind shops, from thrift stores to boutiques, and plenty of restaurants open from morning to night.

There are places to rest, lovely things to look at, public art and music, and occasional events that bring even larger numbers of people downtown.

When a downtown is alive, the people of the city think of it as their own, the place to be, the heart of their community.

What does a dead downtown look like?

The sidewalks are virtually empty. There are few shops, and the restaurants are only open for lunch. There is no pleasure in walking around because there’s nothing to see, nothing to do, nothing to buy.

Sound familiar?

[...]

So much time and money wasted on driving, when thoughtful urban planning could allow more and more of us to live in the kind of walking neighborhood, the living communities that used to be the rule instead of the exception in America.

Will it change? In many places in America, yes, it is changing, and more and more communities are realizing that the vibrancy and vigor of Manhattan and Paris and Florence and London are easily replicated without having to put up with the negatives of the big city.

But will it change here? Not a chance.

Because Greensboro is led by people who think the way to “revive downtown” is to build a big new stadium there.

A stadium! Oh, that’ll bring people downtown, won’t it — why, you could walk for ten or fifteen city blocks around that new stadium and never find a single thing to look at or a single thing to do.

A new stadium will be just another dead space, a monument to folly, like our ugly coliseum and convention center. Another proof that you don’t actually have to know what a city is in order to be elected to govern one, or hired to plan it. [more here]

Does that ring a bell with anyone? Here they are seven years later, with some limited success still trying to develop downtown Greensboro.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Winston-Salem and Greensboro — two cities that have spent several years rejuvenating their urban centers — say finding financing is difficult. As a result, they’re putting the brakes on plans for the foreseeable future.

And this.

FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 2008

Financing delays downtown projects

GREENSBORO — Developers who want to rehab the old Southeastern building downtown can’t get the financing they need for the $8 million [condo] project.

Brace yourself Effie.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 31, 2000

Editorial: Downtown downturn?

The first phase of the Center Pointe tower now will open in January, says its developer, Greensboro builder Roy Carroll. He says the economy has slowed recent sales of condominiums in the new high-rise but no previous sales have fallen through.

“Most of our buyers are empty-nesters,” he says. “They don’t need to sell their current residences to buy ours.”

I thought here in Fort Wayne they were building the condos for the X&Y generations to help stop the brain drain. It’s almost February, and Barry Real Estate is pretty quiet on what’s going on with The Harrison development.

Even with the failure of some condo developments, Greensboro has been somewhat successful with apartments, even their stadium seems to be drawing crowds, according to this article.

One of the saving graces of today’s downtown may be its ability to help sustain itself. More than 1,200 people live there now versus 500 four years ago.

City View Apartments are a rousing success. New Bridge Bank Park defies conventional wisdom by attracting big crowds one baseball season after another. The opening of a popular new chain restaurant, the Mellow Mushroom, near the southern tip of downtown could draw more traffic beyond the center city’s hottest few blocks along South Elm.

Keep one thing in mind, downtown Greensboro has more than 1,000 retail shops, restaurants and service businesses to help draw people downtown. How many does Fort Wayne have?

According to The Downtown Improvement District’s web site, if you take out the fast food restaurants, i.e. McDonalds, Wendy’s Taco Bell, etc we have less than 30 restaurants and only about 12 within walking distance of downtown. We have less than 10 retail shops unless you include The Lincoln Museum, (now closed), Science Central, the Salvation Army Thrift Store, Ream-Steckbeck Paint Company, A Party Apart and several other ridiculous listings in their “Shopper’s Guide to Downtown Fort Wayne“, and what could be considered actual attractions amount to less than 20.

We’re stuck the the stadium, so maybe John McGauley’s idea for an indoor water park merits some discussion, as do other ideas. Given the current economic and financial environment, it’s about time Fort Wayne re-think its moving forward plans for downtown revitalization.

For starters, ditch the condos.

AWB

Mayor King Henry has struck again, this time yanking $250,000 of economic development (CEDIT) funds from city council members so *he* can better decide how to use the funds. Ruling from the top, Deputy Mayor acting Mayor Greg Purcell said “having all the money in one pot would let the city use it more efficiently”.

When the program started in 1990, each council district received $450,000 with an additional $450,000 split among the three at-large members. Henry slashed that amount to $250,000, and now it’s going to ZERO.

From a local news source:

Just because Henry is eliminating the council’s CEDIT funding doesn’t mean he doesn’t want their help, Purcell said.

Last November, the mayor and then-council president Didier sent a letter to neighborhood association presidents asking for suggestions of infrastructure projects.

Hey, how about some sewers for the 3 additions in Aboite that have septic fields that no longer perk? A large portion of the affluent drains into the Hadley ditch, and e-coli levels there are among the state’s highest. All three additions have been part of Fort Wayne since the January 2006 annexation, yet the city hasn’t lifted a finger to resolve the situation. All the while, the city exerts an enormous effort on “green initiatives” and “carbon footprint reduction” yet continues to allow the ongoing pollution of Hadley ditch.

I must note that Councilman Mitch Harper has had conversations with Aqua Indiana, but they won’t even hold conversations with our addition any longer. Talking to Aqua Indiana is like talking to a rock.

The city of Fort Wayne has something called the Green Business Outreach Program, which according to the city’s web site is a pilot program aimed at training citizens on how to reduce the carbon footprint in their home. How about a program designed to keep shit out of the waterways?

They also have the Green Ribbon Commission that according to the city web site is to provide advice and recommendations to the city on goals and strategies to conserve energy and improve air quality, raise awareness of air quality and energy issues within the community and encourage citizens and businesses to engage in energy savings and improved air quality practices. What about the water?

Also from the local news rag:

He [Councilman Smith] said he hopes the administration works with the council on deciding how to spend any federal stimulus money the city might receive as well as the city’s trust fund, when it becomes available next year.

The trust comes from revenues from the city’s light lease with Indiana Michigan Power and could be spent on anything next spring, or not spent at all.

Smith said if the money was to be used, it would be best spent on infrastructure.

Ah, the Light Lease Fund. I wonder how King Henry will take control of that? No, he *will* take control of it. How he spends it will be another issue. I digress.

Taking away the CEDIT funds from city council is in my opinion a bad move. The program has worked well for close to 20 years, and who better to help their constituents than the elected officials that live in the neighborhoods and talk to the citizens every day?

Where I live in the city we still have chip and seal streets, no city water, no street lights, no sewer and no sidewalks. Oh, but we are paying a maintenance fee for sewers and by-golly, they pick the fucking garbage up once a week.

Oh, and we also have Harrison Square. I guess we should all be thankful.

End rant – AWB

It appears from many accounts that White Lodging is spinning out of control. As first reported here on November 16th, White Lodging has be unable to obtain a construction loan for the hotel at Harrison Square.

Yesterday Kevin Leininger reported this:

Although officials with Merrillville-based White Lodging Services say they still hope to begin construction on the 250-room Courtyard by Marriott this year, President and CEO for Investments Deno Yiankes said Friday the company is negotiating with its third would-be lender and that a loan agreement could still be at least months away.

Still hope? Months away? That’s not very definitive, now is it?

No condo’s, no hotel, no retail.

And it appears that White Lodging is giving Austin, TX the shaft as well.

The Austin Statesman reported last month that groundbreaking on a 1,000-room, $275 million hotel [by White Lodging] – originally scheduled for 2008, then this year – is being shelved until further notice.

AWB

Fort Wayne Politics reported that White Lodging is backing out of a planned 1,000 room Marriott in Austin, TX. Sounds like Fort Wayne will be next.

Graham Richards’ legacy:

A failed inner-city housing development, a $2 million tax break to a McDonald’s restaurant, the failed Public Safety Academy of Northeast Indiana, the failure in the development of The Harrison condo project, and screwing the city for $300,000 for his consulting gig.

What am I forgetting?

Happy New Year! – AWB