Jackson Jambalaya

I probably overlooked it, but what did 'we' pay for this study and why did 'we' contract with a private firm to do it in the first place. With as many state offices/agencies/departments as we have, isn't there one somewhere with the capability to research available properties and roll out some feasibility figures?

I think there's a study out there somewhere indicating Mississippians lead the nation in the ability to pour money down study-ratholes.

Sure would have been nice to see Allen remotely as interested in saving Jackson taxpayers from expensive lemons.

This is a relief.

Without this study, we'd have had to foot the bill for the worst and most expensive choice on the list.

So, as long as the study cost less than $72 million PLUS ( and it was unnecessary to go into the PLUS as the building costs + interest alone were so excessive), we taxpayers saved a pot load of money.

It's true that most anyone off the street could ( and quite a few,did) tell the Governor that the Ridgeland/Lakeland site desired by Ed Morgan (gotta love that he's the Commissioner of the Dept. of Revenue now rather than Tax Commissioner) that buidling his monstrosity was a bad idea. If citizens hadn't pointed out the obvious and put the skids on the Lakeland/Ridgewood site,it would have been a done deal. Morgan had already " selected" the site.

There were plenty willing to " trust" Ed Morgan. After all, he's a Republican politician and ex-football player who was asked to recommend the best site so why not ASS U ME he can do math and has common sense and taxpayer interest at heart?

Apparently,playing football at a big time school is as dazzling to male politicians as DD cups!

And, if memory serves, didn't Morgan tell the public the costs were $10 million?

I hope this also confirms to the Governor that Morgan is not fit for the job or a REAL Republican!

We don't need an agency head, especially handling taxes, who is so fiscally irresponsible as to have proposed the Lakeland/Ridgeland site to start .

I just hope the MS Republican party will take notice of the other Republicans behind this boondoggle proposal and GET that they became Republicans only in hope of lining their own pockets or else are so stupid as to lead the party astray. In either case, these guys need to be kept on a very tight leash.

$4MM was recently authorized by the legislature in the latest bond bill to do a study as presented above.

I seriously doubt that the C/W study above cost anything close to $4MM.

At the end of the day, a great victory for the taxpayers and the state capital.

I hope this also confirms to the Governor that Morgan is not fit for the job or a REAL Republican!

Give Morgan credit for picking the right location for his dream building even if the dream was a joke. Because there is a whole lotta faux-Republicans and RINOs in the Eastover neighborhoods immediately adjacent to where Morgan wanted to build his temple. That's why RINO Ben goes out of his way to thank Cecil Brown and why Cecil bent over backwards to please his RINOs. If anything Morgan would have been in excellent company right there in RINOville, er, Eastover.

Another flower in the bonnet for Leland Speed. I was at the first Sunday afternoon River Hills meeting regarding this proposed fiasco on Lakeland Drive.

I never dreamed this would come full circle as it has. Thank God sanity prevailed.

Is there any clarity on leasing the Landmark versus the state buying it?

Something I find troubling: Someone REALLY needs to explain why the State of Mississippi hired an OUT-OF-STATE brokerage firm to represent them in their search for suitable space! (Take a look at CushmanWakefield.com You'll see that they don't have a Mississippi location; therefore, in accordance with Mississippi State Real Estate Commission rules, they're not a Mississippi broker.....an unconscionable decision by DFA, especially in hard times like these!)

NO doubt that leasing was the much better option than building (and buying would have taken them off of the tax rolls), but they (a) used non-Mississippi brokerage (I know, I know, they cooperated with a Mississippi broker - but that's not the same thing), and (b) they most likely didn't get the best deal they could have gotten by going to Landmark.

Leave it to government.........

1:51; does this deal smack of Jim Hood or what?

Not just govt 1:51. Why has the grossly overpaid $390,000 annual Duane O'Neill at the Greater Jackson Chamber hired an Atlanta outfit to come up with its new 10 year plan? Mean to tell me that there isn't probably a dozen companies right here in the metro who could do the same work with ease? Could O'Neill be any more tone deaf and insensitive to the plight of Mississippi businesses?

1:51. An RFQ was posted for this contract. C/W won straight up, and were welcomed as a company with no dog in the hunt. All types of shenanigans were transpiring behind the scene to get the Lakeland Drive building built, and the last thing we (the state) wanted was a "coerced" decision, as has been made the first time around.

There ALREADY had been done, a "study" by a "good ole boy" group from Mississippi, headed uip by an architect from Hattiesburg.

This is the local, Mississippi group that said "Lakeland Drive is far and away better than any building or real estate available".

C/W is a world class company that does analysis like this all over the world. NO ONE in mississippi is capable of doing what they do. NO ONE.

NO ONE in mississippi is capable of doing what they do. NO ONE.

We all know who uses that bullshit argument repeatedly.

Oh is wittle 5:03 all pissy about something good happening again. Porr lil impotent thing!

5:59. It is the obsessed piss ant that "don't do shit with his worthless fucking life", but blog.

RINOs...

Love the class warfare INSIDE the GOP

I guess the RINOS need to take their wallets and educations elsewhere...how about The Champagne Party?

It does seem strange however for those who feel inferior to RINOS to complain about class warfare as you have to be on the wrong side of it if you don't like the RINOs or the poor.

Bad news for you...you're voting against your self interest.

"When the smoke clears, there's NObaddy capable of doing a survey. NOOOOOoooobaddy."

Joe Joe Cannon

Are you the one, perhaps, who points out the typos of the blog owner? That happens pretty damned frequently. It didn't impact me, but did appear to me also that the writer thought Lakeland was in Ridgeland. Ridgewood didn't occur to me since the writer said Ridgeland. I thought maybe the writer was either poorly informed or just.............stupid.

Cushman and Wakefields experience and independence was essential for this study. I applaud the Governors office for taking a stance to save the taxpayers millions.

Cleanup in progress.

Just throwing this out there for discussion -- no real rooster in this fight -- but here it is:

Government buildings pay no property tax, etc. Private buildings do. By paying for a lease rather than constructing a building the State is paying money to a leasor who in turns pays taxes to the City/County -- money the leasor would not be paying if he were to relocate or default and have the building devalued. So in that way the state is propping up downtown property owners by leasing -- which may not be a bad idea if downtown is ever gonna come back. But it might offend some -- state taxes propping up private landowners.

Discuss...Or don't.

I understand the thought process on the property taxes.

I guess it is just a cost benefit analysis. I would rather pay some property tax instead of building an "asset" that will have other charges such as maintenance and insurance. I also haven't seen the lease to read what the State will pay.

But it makes for a good discussion.

"I also haven't seen the lease to read what the State will pay."

Try $12.90/foot. $50/foot in re-hab paid by the developer/owner.

AGGRESSIVE.

And where was the City of Jackson? They are the proud owners of the 200,000 foot, vacant Dillards at Metro Center. Not even proposed?

interesting article:

http://www.tax.ms.gov/complianceaward.html

Plelnty of fallicies in this study - it was designed to result in a location in downtown Jackson. One of the criteria was "distance from the Capitol". Over 400 hundred employees in this building and maybe three or four that have any reason to be at the capitol. And those at the Capitol have no reason to be at the DOR building.

Ben Allen et.al. were pushing the state to help shore up downtown property values by taking some of the massive empty space off the market. No problem with that if it produces a good result otherwise. But anything that wasn't "close" to the Capitol was excluded, thus a result that will cost $1M plus more per year in rent.

Cellular South opens its mail and cashes its checks in Franklin County. Frankly, thats what over half of the employees that will be moving to high priced office space in downtown Jackson will be doing under this recommendation. But Parkway & Eastover will be able to maintain their rental rates, so all is fine.

Now, if we could just have us a convention center hotel next door.

8:13 is full of shit. Which "study" is full of fallicies?

The first TWO that were designed to substantiate a NEW building, or the third one, which actually measured new versus present office capacities (AFTER the cookie jar was exposed).

Kingfish, if I were to send you all three, with the patterns of DECEPTION highlighted, will you post them? All 80 plus pages of each?

8:13 you have not READ any of them.

Also 8:13, they are LEASING the space for $12.90 per foot, compared to normal class A space that is in the 20 buck range + (AND $50 per foor for re-hab). Hardly "high priced" you bogus piece of shit.

I've read them all. Plus a fourth that you don't mention (maybe you haven't read them all) that had the state building a new building in Rankin County.

I'm NOT in favor of building a new building - on Lakeland, or downtown. But there were other present office capacities other than 'walking distance to the capitol'.

The fact that Jackson has a high (27% according to Barbour, and I'm sure he is correct as his MDA head probably has given him numbers every day) vacancy rate is not the problem for state taxpayer to pay. We've already ponied up to build Farrish Street. Then we financed the Telcom Center (you know, that building that is next to the Convention Center, but we don't call it a telcom center anymore since all the telcom business didn't want or need it). Then we gave the Telcom Center to Jackson, who is losing money on it now and needs a hotel paid for by taxpayers.

No, my problem with this study, is that it only gave credit to buildings downtown - Regions Bank, Landmark, and South Point. And these bureaucrats have no business needing to be downtown. But I'm sure Parkway is happy - they represented Landmark and now have something to support their rents across the street.


Hurrahhh! Now with the state spending $1.5 million more per year in rent, Jackson's vacancy rate will probably decrease to 25%.

8:52 - do more than read studies. See what is behind them and what is left out.

Methinks 8:52 got his britches scalded, if not his ass!

9:01....the owners of this building made a competitive bid that will save the taxpayers money. The shenanigans in this deal occurred before this study by those trying to steer this elsewhere without a competitive process. My guess is that you are somehow part of that losing group.

9:01 where do you get the Clinton based South Point is downtown?

Looks to me like 9:01, who can't even SPELL Farish Street, is another one of those "Jackson Sucks" at all costs, "know-it-alls" that apparantly "don't know shit" about that of which he speaks.

9:01. "No, my problem with this study, is that it only gave credit to buildings *downtown* - Regions Bank, Landmark, and *South Point*."

The revisionist penning editorials at the Mississippi Business Journal needs to actually read Haley Barbour's letter to the legislature dated Sept 30, 2011.

Barbour recommends leasing the Landmark Center NOT the purchasing of the building. The cost savings outlined in Barbour's letter are also based on leasing not purchasing.

Facts are inconvenient things but the bottom line is that Haley Barbour DID NOT RECOMMEND PURCHASING the Landmark Center.

Carry on carrying water.