Jackson Jambalaya

Another headstone in our national graveyard of new urbanism.

Its had problems from day one. The main problem is there is only one access road, its several miles long, and it takes forever to get anywhere if you live in Lost Rabbit.

Several sources have told me that when Lost Rabbit was first envisioned, Cochran ran appropriations and Lott was Senate Majority Leader. Alot of stroke for one state. The plan was to get entrance and exit ramps built onto the trace so you could reach lost rabbit within a few minutes of leaving the interstate.

Problem is, the Park Service doesn't think of the Trace as a thoroughfare but an actual parkway. They thought their Mississippi connections in the Senate could get the Park Service to add some type of interchange but it never materialized. The development was thus built without the access to the Trace that would have made it work better than it has. CMMC North Jackson campus comes to mind. Then there are the builders and designs used. One well-known realtor told me you would have to buy new furniture for some of the houses because the rooms were built so small. Some of the builders were part time builders. Several miles away from civilization, one access road, and so on. I don't think its going to succeed as a mixed-use project and eventually will be reconfigured as a more traditional development when the market comes back.

yes, I know, there were reasons for everything in this deal and I don't know them. Just going by what I do know and have read. Any and all corrections are indeed welcome.

All that is good KF and I'm sure accurate on some level though its questionable in my mind that Lost Rabbit's key obstacle to success is access. Not questioning your work though.

But at the most basic the problem with Lost Rabbit and numerous other upper end subdivisions + (re)developments ..(i.e. Meadowbrook Arbor being a glaring example).. in the metro that today sit in varying stages of (in)completeness is that, from the outset, too many developers used pie-in-the-sky projections for overall demand based on cheap money and faulty assumptions of population growth that were never going to pan out. It was a willful suspension of demographic reality.

I do not think there is one main reason this development failed. Its really a confluence of events. Poor access does not help. Unrealistic prices for "unique" floorplans did it for me. Several unsold units are 3 stories tall amd strangely configured such that you have to be a billy goat to get to the master bedroom.

After bankruptcy when lot prices decline and the building market recovers...it will be nice....but it will be years

if i bought there i wd rent per space at the harbor and leave a car there, commute by boat from l rabbit to harbor walk area. that said, the rooms/lots all seem geared toward midgets!

i meant 'pier'

I wouldn't call "Several miles from civilization and taking forever to get anywhere" an accurate description, and unless you are including Hoy Road, the access road isn't several miles long. It is practically within the city limits of Madison and not materially further down Hoy than Northbay and several other subdivisions, so I can't go along with that being the source of any problems. The quick summary on this development is it sounded almost too good to be true from the start, and we all know what is said about such things. At the end of the day they were expecting people to pay a premium for image more than anything else. Some dumb money around that will support such things, but they needed dumb credit to fill up most of it, and once that started drying up, it all came tumbling down.

KF,
The Greg McPherson affidavit link isn't working.

I would live in Lost Rabbit in a second if I could afford it. I love the location and the looks of the homes. However I suppose they have done what they set out to do: keep out the po' folk. This sister certainly can't afford it.

Of course, maybe if I had enough money to live there I would be interested in places with larger acreage lots... regardless... it's a cute neighborhood.

All this legal bickering- and now it is off to the courts.

Sometimes negotiation can solve the problem cheaper and quicker.

Here is one book on how to do it.

"The Lawyer's Guide to Negotiation"
Coauthored by among others one X.M. Frascogna Jr.

http://www.wildy.com/isbn/9781570738913/the-lawyer-s-guide-to-negotiation

Sometimes though you find yourself negotiating for the last piece of pie after the pie has been eaten.

You may be S.O.L. when the pie is gone.

Fixed.

As is so typical, lots of Monday-morning quarterbacking going on in this thread. LR is one of the most well-planned developments you'll ever find, and the houses were "sized" in a way that is true to the style of architecture chosen by the developers. Is it different than the sizing of the common McMansions of today? Yes. Are they expensive to build in that fashion and using the materials that were used? You bet. Was the site overlooking the Reservoir expensive to develop? Most assuredly, it was. All that being said, because of the items mentioned above, LR took a long time to plan and implement. If you go back and look at the timeline from start to groundbreaking by the first builders, you'll see that it all started to come online just as the financial crisis clouds were beginning to build. As houses started going on the market for sale, the financial crisis was in full-swing, so that's the real culprit. As far as access is concerned, think of all of the neighborhoods hat only have "one way in, one way out." There are MANY of them out there. That claim is just easy picking of low-hanging fruit........Did the developers of LR make some mistakes? Absolutely. Surprisingly, however, (even though I'm no way involved or associated with this development) it appears to me that their greatest fault was that it was TOO well planned! Had they gotten off the ground earlier, and not gotten bogged down in the minutiae that most people would have never noticed, they might have gotten far enough along to avoid most of the problems brought on by the financial meltdown. It's an outstanding development with a LOT of attention to detail. Shame so many people lost lots of money on it.

1. Do you really think without a recession or financial crisis those homes would've sold? Especially if all of those other high end developments such as Livingston Township actually came online?

2. You might want to go check the TIF bonds and how the assessments apply to homeowners. Hint: There are two classes of people, those who will pay them, and those who won't.

Madison is and awesome place to live but it isn’t Destin Florida and the Ross Barnett Mud Hole ain’t no beautiful ocean.

Sad thing is the guys behind this development can pay these bills.

6:31, I agree it was a nice concept, but not very realistic given the area. Anybody know how the championship golf course and ferry to Harborwalk are coming along? Last I heard the Lost Rabbit folks were trying to partner up with the Northbay folks to use the golf course and pools. That was last year I think. Did they get that worked out.

I have to read through the bond documents but someone told me the special assessments for the TIF bonds only apply to future homeowners, not the current ones. That will be nice if true.

King, see p. 31.

I know this is an old post but I just saw another one posting about Barbour's new Urbanism in Ms. Ok now I'm going to look into this new-2-me issue. I was actually investigating a pos. Haley Fisackerly corruption when I came across this: http://leadms.blogspot.com/

Problem is, from the start, they left out the heart of the community, the church. Our church was looking for property at about the same time this development was forming and had inquired about property in the Madison county area with some of the developers. Instead of offers of land donation as stated in the FAQ's, they tried to sell us a million dollar piece of swamp land in Gluckstadt.
Put the heart in, and the soul of the community will be revived!