Jackson Jambalaya

Plus news this morning that Jackson is sucking wind badly. The pipe dream of trading taxpaying rooftops and small businesses for a downtown generated sales tax bonanza is DOA.

Dairy Queen

The interesting thing about this is that these numbers are for Q1 and in April MS was #46 on the list for foreclosure related actions (per RealityTrac and from a MBJ article)

Could it be that banks servicing MS-based loans went ahead and served papers before the rest of [most] of the country?

Would be the opposite. May not be foreclosing when they can. Takes five months or so of missing payments for most banks to begin foreclosure proceedings. Mississippi has been last in terms of foreclosures for awhile but if you get past the rankings and dig into the numbers themselves you will see the foreclosures have been increasing although not as much in relation to the rest of the country.

The 1st 3 quarters were when the backlog was being taken care of (that had been imposed by Obama's horribly ineffective program of 'working out' deliquent mortgages) nationwide, correct?

I agree with you on the fact that the numbers, I am sure, have been going up. It still appears as if for April that percentage has slowed dramatically for MS

I suppose that the thing that confuses so much is that it is hard to judge apples-to-apples from a percentage basis from Q1 to April since it appears as if the backlog was taken care of in Q1 (across the nation.)

Thanks for the response. That first post, unfortunately, doesn't surprise me but I'm holding out hope that downtown can see some sort of turn around...

What is/are the metric(s) Jason by which you would consider the effort downtown a success or failure?

Because a rooster crowing every morning about how many $[x] millions or billions are being ostensibly spent there means little beyond the soundbite.

I'm mainly speaking about social and business/social services. I have spoken to some that say plenty of spaces, when they become vacant, are being gobbled up by businesses in office buildings, etc. But that's just anecdotal.... I can tell you that when I was downtown eating lunch at Keiffer's (on Congress) a couple of weeks ago it seemed awfully empty feeling on the streets for it to be lunch time. A far cry from when I was working down there in the early 2000s.

I personally don't think that it will be considered a success until you can go down there without 1) having to worry about stepping over 5 homeless people to have a drink; 2) there are actually more than 15 people who actually live in the King Edward or are attorneys that are downtown 98% of the time anyway patronizing anything West of Congress St after 6pm; and 3) there is some sort of entertainment corridor/cloud (that doesn't loose its luster after 9 months) close to the King Edward.

Spending the $$ down there is one thing...having people show up is quite another. I think that they have 12 months to get things moving (in a big way) in the right direction or people will stop giving downtown a chance.

I do want it to be said that I REALLY want it to work. There is nothing better for a community (Madison, Brandon, everywhere) than to have a vibrant city center. Hell -- even one with a pulse will do :) I think that the real movement over the next 2-3 years will continue to be in Fondren. Downtown (proper) wins...so does Fondren. Downtown looses, fondren still wins (or at least stays where it is.)

p.s. - full disclosure here. we have been out of jackson for 2 years (in new orleans) but we're moving back next month. I have been in town 1-2 days every week since we have been gone, but I fully recognize that there may be a big swath of information that i've missed in the past 24 months...

Sorry to be all over the comments. I just happened on this yesterday and just go around to watching it, but this is an interesting video about a mixed-use developer in Columbus (MS) and at the end he references Jackson (~4:30) and the fact that he thinks it will probably be 10-12 years before their downtown really has traction.

interesting.

he does mention shopping which may actually be KEY to bumping up downtown (and it probably a big reason why Fondren has seen success over the last 10 years.) Are there any plans that anyone knows about for shopping downtown? I haven't heard from any...

Forget mortgages....they are but a drop in the bucket...

http://usdebtclock.org

It takes $77.14 in taxable sales (7% rate) within the municipal limits of any Mississippi city to replace $1 in lost property tax revenue.

What about employment taxes. What are the amounts owed there? Especially in the PLLC arena. I am very curious. I could point you to a situation and see what you uncover.

Gosh all the local level financial reporting that we used to receive at JJ before Ben Whitetoast bought the franchise.