Jackson Jambalaya

Maybe they can get some space with John Burwell somewhere.

Maybe there is some extra space for them in Burwell's trailer at Main Harbor.

What will this mean for Ben Allen's boyz, or is this lawsuit just a 'perception' in Allen's view?

See if "rebranding" makes all the debt and legal expenses go away.

The Hotel Valencia " Express " ,

Coming soon to historic North State Street

Another fantasy development - 1st clue was that out of all the people depicted in the artist's rendering of the development, I only saw 4 black people, and one of them was the trumpet player on the street. I think the artist has his mix reversed as far as his developer's projected clientele is concerned.

The developer is a black guy from originally from Jackson who lives in NYC now and has done well with other developments. These crooks running the show now will eat him for lunch!

Phase I acquisition was to have happened 1.5 years ago and nothing has happened to date on that.

I'll believe this one when I see it and I doubt I live long enough.

Meanwhile, Burwell tells a fisherman, "Can't you read you son of a bitch? I own the water too!"

Don't really expect to see too many (all Black)
"Jazz Bands" ... lining up to entertain the masses at the fish taco food trucks at Smith Park.

Face it. The supply/demand metrics behind all of these projects in downtown Jackustan is pure hype. If the ROI actually worked the private sector would have funded these boondoggles long, long ago. The projects didn't make sense when the private sector was lavishing money on anything remotely plausible and the arguments for them are even more specious now. The idea that there is a pent-up wave of people looking to move downtown, businesses looking to relocate downtown, consumers looking to spend on overpriced boutique goods/services downtown and conventioneers overeager to attend conventions in the downtown of Detroit's unofficial sister city was a pipe dream from the outset.

11:03 your last sentence was as brilliant as it was succinct.

Some people around here are just delusional about Jackson's prospects.

Hey Dudes - at least Burwell pays his RENT and a Hell of a lot more

Not so much delusional as people be paid money to push bad ideas with no chance of working.

Is Burwell paying his contractual obligation (rent) somehow a fair exchange for all the embarrassment and anger he has visited upon his community? The man has duped us all. If those of us seeking better community amenities simply wanted people to lease up every inch around the REZ with zero improvement to the economy or landscape, that's what we'd be promoting. However, in fairness to the man, there is some interesting rusted steel and some scrapped boat hulls out there for visitors to see as they come off the Trace and visit the Crafts Center.

Well, I can't say I'm shocked that this deal is falling apart, but my concern is less to do with the integrity of those involved than with the endemically flawed concept. The developers/financiers/contractors etc. can have the most honorable intentions and be of indisputable probity and the project will still be a bust, because it's not grounded in practicality.

Others have said it more eloquently than I, but it bears repeating. This notion that a ready-built prefab community will make downtown Jackson an urban residential mecca is insane. Further, it shows a complete misunderstanding of the dynamics of this city, its residents, its business trends, and the region at large.

Just look at the numbers. The story claims that Capitol Green plans to add four thousand housing units to the area. Setting aside the "mixed income" designation and the ludicrous notion that well to do residents will pay hundreds of thousands of dollars for a home within eyesight of just-above-poverty-line housing, the idea that the current (or ANY) housing market will absorb 4,000 new units when there are safer and cheaper options within a reasonable commute is ignorant.

I'm constantly befuddled by these projects. It's as if no one stepped back and asked, "What is the end toward which we are striving?" Let's say the wrecking balls come, then the construction crews, then the painters and landscapers and the city has a nice, shiny new mixed-income neighborhood right out of some politically correct Hollywood TV show. What then? How do you sell it? Certainly the lower end of the "mixed-income" clientele will be excited to upgrade their digs, but what does this afford the middle- or upper-income resident? Are there 2500 home buyers willing to take out a 30-year mortgage to live within walking distance of the Old Capitol? Call me quirky, but I just don't think Ben Allen and Donna Ladd can use their tactics of guilt, shame and denial to persuade that many people to leave Madison, Ridgeland, Flowood or Byram for a questionable roll-of-the-dice township.

Promise me all the blues clubs you can, but I'm still not gambling my family's welfare on this, and I think it's safe to say that neither will most area residents. But it appears we'll never know now, will we? Actually, I think that's a good thing. I'd rather see this thing fail early than get halfway through and run out of money, only to have the developer go hat-in-hand to the Legislature for a multi-million dollar loan.

Wait, that last part seems all too familiar...

Great post Reed and others. Economically diverse mixed-use (re)development is little more than new and improved code for what turned out to be the crime and drug infested socially engineered (and now dilapidated) villages of this country's 60s-era leftists that litter the inner cities of this country.

The Todd Stauffers and Donna Ladds of the United States would have you believe that the projects never worked because the middle and upper classes were never forced, er, coerced to live near and among the inhabitants of the great liberal experiment.

America's legacy from now generations of redistributionist liberalism is a bust and their latest maharishi Richard Florida is a bonafide fraud whose only claim to progress is that his followers aren't begging in airports.

OK, first of all, the number of units has to be wrong. I know the Free Press reported that number (I checked), but there is no way that 4000 units would fit into that space unless the buildings were 200 stories tall. I think those accuracy-obsessed folks at the JFP inflated the number by a factor of 10. Just as an example, Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis was 33 buildings, each 11 stories tall, on 57 acres, and it contained less than 3000 units (thanks, Wikipedia).

And speaking of Pruitt-Igoe, 6:31's reference to projects got me to thinking from that viewpoint and I found some ominously parallel thinking between post-WWII St. Louis and some of the blather that is bandied about today in the name of "revitalization".

Here are a couple of quotes from Alexander von Hoffman of Harvard regarding the project:

"...the essential concept of Pruitt-Igoe arose from the desperation of civic leaders to save their city by rebuilding it"

"These mayors...looked for support from downtown business interests. They campaigned for the revival of their aging cities and promoted large-scale physical building programs that included highways, airports, and especially downtown and neighborhood redevelopment."

"...the Pruitt-Igoe project was the product of a larger vision of St. Louis government and business leaders who wanted to rebuild their city into a Manhattan on the Mississippi."

Now I realize that there's a significant difference between postwar urban renewal naivete and the much smaller scale projects being pushed in Jackson, but they share some similarities that ought not be summarily dismissed. Specifically, both were much more focused on an impractical, romantic notion of a renewed city, so much so that caution was all but thrown to the wind and the practicalities of the projects (as well as the shifting demographic patterns of the city) were mitigated, if not completely ignored.

Guys, someone needs to interject some sanity into DJP's snake oil pitches, lest we wind up watching these ill-conceived buildings destroyed to the music of Philip Glass someday.

It probably is only a matter of time before Ben Allen pushes this sort of lunacy.

DETROIT (WWJ) – Employees of five downtown-based companies are being given financial incentives to live where they work.
...
In the five-year, $4 million “Live Downtown” program, first-time home buyers will get a $20,000 forgivable loan. Renters will get a $2,500 first year allowance, and $1,000 the following year. Employees who already own a home in the city will be given up to a $5,000 grant for exterior improvements.

There can be little doubt that RINO Ben will expect Jackson's dwindling tax base to pay the bill.

All are blaming neurotic Jackson's prospects.



Sample Leases

/\/\ 11:49 is SPAM /\/\

What amazes me the most is how people in Mississippi continue to wonder why people in other states think that everyone here are ass backwards. This state and the people in it are like time just stood still... I can only hope that the younger generation of adults that flee here as fast as they possibly can for lives in cities where there is lifestyle, culture and progression choose to come back and tell all of the boring and backwards naysayers that they are sick of their home state and capital being boring and underdeveloped and they are ready to make a change. What I look forward to most is the large amount of synical conservative dry geeks that will standing on the outside of Old Capital Green looking in wishing they new someone that could get them in... never seen rich people living around poorer people... go to New York, Atlanta, Chicago or any other city where development has moved ahead in time and not stood still like Jackson. Hell I bet if somebody suggests a development in Madison folks will be all over it with positive remarks. The people here are so narrow minded and negative.

... choose to come back and tell all of the boring and backwards naysayers that they are sick of their home state and capital being boring and underdeveloped and they are ready to make a change.

NOTHING stopping that army from coming back NOW and getting the job done with their own private sector dollars. If it is all such a grand can't miss idea you sure as hell don't need the taxpayers to finance it. Time for the "younger generation" to put up or shut up.

I hope this issue will be resolved by the courts as soon as possible to give a sense of security to the neighbors in the area. It will also build confidence among the business community.