Buyer Remorse?
Remember Kelo vs. the City of New London? That was the ground breaking and controversial eminent domain ruling a few years back that involved removing an entire neighborhood to accomodate plans by Pfizer to expand their corporate campus and do a mixed use development. The Wall Street Journal reports the area is a disaster and Pfizer is bugging out.
Read the story here.
Cannon Fodder, a longtime poster at www.tulsanow.org/forum believes there’s a lesson to be learned with this case. Read his comments here.
Our own civic leadership, meanwhile, got some class time of their own last week when they visited Kansas City’s Power and Light District. Some were a bit remorseful over how things didn’t go so well with The Cordish Co. a decade ago when the city was deciding the future over what is now Lower Bricktown. Some privately wondered whether we missed the boat by not teaming up with Cordish, who went on to do the Power and Light District and similar greatly hyped projects across the country.
But with Lower Bricktown, the pricetag isn’t anything closer to what came with doing a deal with Cordish. And Cordish apparently plays hardball. Behind the lights and glitter of the Power and Light District, the stark truth is that Kansas City’s already stressed general fund, and not the Tax Increment Finance District, are paying that pricetag.
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Comments
It seems the moral of the story is OKC dodged a bullet? It’s also cautionary, and would seem to suggest that a city should never bet the farm on one big, grand scheme.
I’m curious if we can draw any comparisons with the Maps 3 process thus far. Are we seeing an overemphasis on the new central park for example, at the expense of the ongoing organic development in midtown, Bricktown, etc? Or, is such a negative outcome more remote based on the diversity and scale of the effort?
I’m glad the experience of KC and other areas are being looked it. That’s encouraging.
the captin marvel story is SO COOL!!! i started collecting comics when i was a kid after my father died, and i have waited 36 years to read this story. back in ’73-74, a copy of this issue was about $45, which was a LOT of cash back then. this was one in a series of stories in which the captain went to various american cities (indianapolis was the next one), and the writers filled the stories with local cultural references and images. stuff like this, and the natural humor of the captain, made him VERY popular with the kids. truly an age of innocence, now lost.
where did you ever come up with that?
This is completely off topic, but I couldn’t think of a better place to say it since your OKC History blog doesn’t provide for comments.
While enjoying on the one hand insomnia and on the other falling asleep at my home computer chair (which caused me to miss a very important meeting about Okc History Tuesday evening) and while obsessing on MAPS 3 pretty much full time these days, I occasionally open my eyes to see what the rest of the world, most particularly Oklahoma City history guys, is/are doing.
I just checked out the new post at OkcHistory.com … Captain Marvel Visits Oklahoma City. It is SO cool!
Everyone should check it out, ASAP.