Jackson Jambalaya

It was a good excuse to tear down the dock. Ridgeland PD we’re happy about that.

That's putting it mildly.

WHy were they happy about it

At least Harbor Drive was widened.

And they replaced it with a floating trailer park.

The man that owns the lease is worth several Billion Dollars. He doesn't need financing.

The guy from Texas? I think Burwell went to him after the project stalled. Doesn't really matter. Here we are, 17 years later and nothing. Main Harbor should be a crown jewel of the area.

@10:18 PM
Thanks for that laugh. Internet tough guys have been the funniest running joke on the internet since 1991!

@1012- though there was a loss of revenue from numerous weekly DUI arrests, the dock had degraded into fight club. One of the last articles I remember reading about a fight there was a RPD getting shot. It seemed to be happening more often than not.

The club had become more than a public nuisance

Ridgeland PD loved the Dock. It was a great source of DUI arrests and other citations that made their stats look good.

Had a broker quote a pre-construction Harbor Walk condo unit at the same price per square foot as beach front condos in Perdido. The Rez is great but a 33,000 acre shallow silt filled brown water lake just isn’t going to bring Gulf of Mexico beach front prices.

About the only way for that deal to have survived as planned would be like the Lost Rabbit development…get it going with investor money…then when it doesn’t work…it has to be saved.

A property with so much potential just sitting undeveloped is a real shame…and really doesn’t make sense. Maybe Ridgeland should turn the project over to the City of Madison…bet they could get it done.

Hey atleast we got some nice landscaping in the center of Harbor Drive.

Taylor

I’m sorry your father passed away.

What can you do to help preserve his dreams?

@7:20 AM
Kingfish isn’t approving my responses to you, so consider your dignity under his protection.

@7:25

The City of Madison could get it done? thats laughable. Mary is a development killer. On the other hand, Gene could do it correctly.

Well, one was in all caps and the other dragged Trump into it.

So, people put down payments on future condos. What happened to that money? Did they get it back?

Just how big an ol' boy are you?

R.D. Mercer

Taylor, as far as I can tell, you're a 40-ish insurance executive. Engaging in online spats has no upside for you. Just my $0.02.

Between Harbor Walk and Farish Street the future's so bright ya gotta wear shades!

I’m disappointed in your local readers kingsquid.

None of them appear to have tried to overthrow the government.

What a bunch of pansies!

OK Taylor, I will meet you at the old dock parking lot tonight at 5:30 pm. I would say later but I will have just eaten at Denny's and and will need to be in bed by 7p. You will recognize me, as I am the fat bald guy with a walking cane, and am ready to give you and your dead father a verbal smack down, and then whip you.

Commenter talking big and presenting himself as having some sort of personal connection and seeking to find affront needs to remember it's the JJ scrum his chit talking seems to be poking.

Taylor Burwell: I seem to remember Mr. Burwell bullying an old black man who dared to cricket-fish from the bank. And he allowed a vagrant to set up housekeeping on somebody's moored craft once. both of those events were covered in the local media. And once, Mr. Burwell pulled up alongside me at that location and told me he not only owned the development but owned the water under the pontoon boats. I won't repeat my reply to him here but I kept right on fishing. I was in a jon boat. As that harbor was accessible from public waters, he did NOT own the water. Sounds like you inherited his arrogance.

You could have slanted your story from the standpoint that “it’s a shame this project couldn’t get off the ground”. But you chose to besmirch the name of someone who at least “tried”. At the very least, John put himself out there to be “the man in the arena”. Surely that counts for
some respect? This article could have been a jumpstart to maybe get Madison to revisit the idea. What a shame.

I only care about one thing, I want the rights to the concessions at the fight. Make that two, and a week to draw a crowd.

@ 10:18 lighten up Francis

Oh how I remember the days of going to the Dock late night and seeing Dr. Charles Williams working as security/bouncer at the front door. He probably wishes he was back there working instead of being PW Director for Jackson considering all the issues the city is facing.

Don’t know anything about this Taylor fellow aside from his anger displayed here. I think a nice joint while watching the sunset would do you a world of good.

This has been an ongoing drama for twenty years. Google is your friend. Or we could wait for Kingfish to throw up a composite of all the many media articles and video presentations regarding this boondoggle. The only angry soul I see is the son attempting to salvage the damaged family name. Ridgeland should never have fallen for this con game to begin with.

I did all that, ten years ago. Collected all the stories.

Why there aren't many nice things...stupid is as stupid does.

Of course the schemers and scammers always claim their chit smells like perfume.

Next someone will be chitposting here at JJ about how the beef plant was a good idea failed by bad people with no imagination.


Or about so called clean coal and Miss Power and Kemper and bright futures dimmed by backstabbers.

The Board wanted to be like a marine development in California, I forget the name. Santa something. Burwell provided nice plans and the concept they wanted. I don't think he scammed, really don't. I just think he got in over his head, the Board didn't do due diligence to check for assets and financing as much as it could have, and Burwell found it tough to get the financing he needed. This was long before the crash of 2008.

@8:56

that sounds great when’s ole Gene going to “do it?”

No doubt there is a difference between a schemer and a scammer.

Read what you posted about the topic back in 2007 while the Harbor Walk deal was still a little riper: http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/2007/06/harborwalk-follies.html

In my opinion some of the claims and statements reported back in 2007 certainly tilt from schemer towards scammer. The best you could say in my opinion is big hat, few if any cattle.


What say you?

Taylor, I have no dog in this particular hunt, but I think it is mighty refreshing to see a man defend his dead daddy. Kudos for signing your name and manning up. Family matters. Dad’s matter. Decades old besmirching by anonymous posters says more about the posters than their target to me. IMO, for most part, Dad’s who screw up are just doing the best they can by the lights they have to see by and sometimes they make terrible decisions under tremendous pressure. Mine did worse than yours.. I still love and respect him too. As do many others.
Bill Simmons

I had moved away before the "Dock" became a thug haven.
But I can see that.

During the 1980's, the "Dock" was one of the most popular joints in the Deep South ... (this side of the Florabama).

Don Drane said...


If this the same Don Drane that I think it is, I'm still laughing about the Bennie Thompson political sign you put in your buddies' yard.

But back on topic ... if Burwell was legit or not,
I don't recall the first audit of his pipe dream.

7:25 am has 20/20 vision of this project: murky reservoir water with weeds and snakes can't generate high end real estate.

A careful developer would have pre-sales in hand before financing, thereby letting the market drive his project concept. I recently watched a new 20 floor condo beach project in Gulf Shores nearly sell out during construction for 3 br/3ba units pre-sold for nearly a million each, then some resold for more.

Why didn't the developer propose his pricey project on a prime Gulf site instead of a marginally popular oversized farm pond?

Dear Harbor Walk:

Keep your chin up. Construction will begin soon, and then the money will be flowing.

Regards,

Farish Street Restoration Project

Krusatyr at 5:44pm: snakes? What? There are snakes in the reservoir? Are people getting bitten? Are ridgeland and Brandon covering it up?

9:22am looks like no one knows if that money was ever paid back or not.

I was there last week and there is some construction happening on the sea wall. Looks like more than maintenance

Can't wait for the newly leased boat repair business to turn into the eyesore it had been for years beside Shuckers. In the Planning and Zoning arena, Ridgeland continues its race to become another Pearl. But, Gene has a new desk.

When the "Reservoir" was being planned, there had just been a mass exodus of Mississippi's perennially-poor, to places like Detroit. Things were looking wonderful, as suddenly everybody in Central Mississippi seemed to be Middle Class and "nice". President Eisenhower had also "cleaned things up", with his mass deportations. The old post-Kristallnacht Nazi propaganda ad, showing Aryans at the beach (Or was it a public pool?), the one captioned, "Isn't it nice, now that it's JUST US?", comes to mind.

The area's "Typical Teenagers", looked and acted like Leslie Gore, Patty Duke, and Tony Dow. "Darkly handsome" - at its very darkest - meant Rick Nelson. You had to go down to the Coast, to encounter "off-looking" teens like Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon.

"Recreation", consisted of wasp-waisted mothers, in gingham dresses and cat-eye glasses, dressing little girls up in thrifty cotton sundresses, and forcing little boys to wear ugly, black mid-calf socks, with their white tennis shoes and shorts. This was VERY important, to readers of 'Woman's Day' and 'Family Circle'. Fathers ("Dad" was still regarded as a mild obscenity - the male equivalent of "Gal", and no nice person said that word, except as a slur - and not in front of the children.), wore ugly shirts with huge, floppy short sleeves, and even uglier khakis, which made their atrophied "behinds" look a yard wide.

Once everybody was properly-attired, they'd load a big picnic basket into the station wagon, and head out to a properly-appointed "Recreation Area". There, they'd find properly-constructed concrete picnic tables and concrete benches, where they'd 'recreate' by eating weenies on buns (prepared at the beautifully-maintained brick barbecue adjacent the picnic table and trash receptacle). There was mustard. There was relish. There was catsup. There was mayonnaise. Applying all of these to the bun, was how normal people 'recreated'.

Younger people, and "sporty" people, would swim or boat. "Women and Girls", would wear two-piece bathing suits - tops covering more than most of today's bustiers, and bottoms coming up past the navel. Men, their chests sunken from smoking cigarettes, wore "trunks" - waistlines up past the navel, and leg openings really wide - apparently to be sure that legs looked as spindly as possible.

But as DORKY as all of this was, it was PARADISE, compared to what eventually materialized. Nobody envisioned "the scene" at "The Dock". Nobody envisioned drunken Acquaintance Rape, aboard boats. No Mid-century planners envisioned widespread substance abuse - or, in "Dry", mostly-Methodist Mississippi - that booze-fueled traffic fatalities would mar the Recreation Area's comings-and-goings.

Jackson was expected to continue to BOOM - gaining population - most of it respectable and Middle Class. Nobody could have foreseen that there would NOT BE ENOUGH MIDDLE CLASS PEOPLE in the metropolitan area, to support BOTH a thriving nightlife in Downtown Jackson, AND the Reservoir's "Recreation Area".

NOBODY could have envisioned the majority of the area's population becoming so toxic and destructive, that everybody would have to avoid everybody else, and everything would have to be restructured TO EXCLUDE the dysfunctional and destructive. But that's reality "The Dock", and "recreation" HAD TO GO, once things changed for the worse. The "Harbor Walk" concept was predicated on anachronistic expectations. It has no place, given the REALITIES of life in the Jackson Metro.

" The area's "Typical Teenagers", looked and acted like Patty Duke" .

What's wrong with that ? ... Patty was a cute little thing back then.
(And wilder than you probably realize).

I think Miss Duke would have felt at home at "The Dock".

Hell, even before her death ... I think she would have enjoyed "Pelican Cove" on a Sunday afternoon back in 2010..

Burrell should have asked Patty Duke to be an investor.

After all ... she had earned millions over her career.
But I think she was way too smart to invest in the "Harbor Walk" fantasy.

Between the 1950s and the mid-2000s, there were the 1960s and the 70s. There was also the crack boom of the late 80s and early 90s, which saw per-capita homicides in Jackson spiral out of control, which have only recently been surpassed (for the last three consecutive years).

Seems to me 11:56 is carrying some major baggage, with a very selective memory not necessarily tied to reality.

11:56 is on several waiting lists - Chief among them the third building on the left, second floor out at Whitfield.

@5:41
Yeah the long ranting SCREED and random CAPS betray an UNHINGED LUNATIC has gotten ahold of a TRACFONE and is broadcasting their MENTAL ILLNESS from the bushes between Whataburger and Waffle House on HIGH STREET where vagrants often CHARGE their phones on an outlet on the SIGN while GETTING HIGH on shake n bake CRYSTAL METH.

@11:56 could have simply said

“Jackson was taken over by far left Democrats that allow thugs to hold the city hostage and now…

the rest of us can’t have anything nice and fun!”


So glad I was around to Jackson when it was!

11:56 needs to quit bogarting that mushroom tea. Damn, man, that stuff has to be good, all the shit they're writing.

As usual, the UNWANTED TRASH who helped ruin things, know when they're being described, and go into Attack Mode.

8:51 - Those who ruined things don't read this blog. In fact, it's doubtful they read at all. Or even CAN.

race-baiting at 8:51, trying to justify that I-drank-the-bong-water comment at 11:56.

Welcome to the Two Lakes project, oh I mean Hotel Valencia, it was no surprise that the project dies. As other posters have said, brown water resort hotel and condominium complex does not make for blue water prices.

I thought that the plan was for the hotel occupancy to be so low that the state would grant them a casino license to save it from bankruptcy. I knew that the Hotel Valencia was too far from the airport and interstate highways to fill all of those rooms.

Some reasons that a business man will seek help from the government are that he has been rejected by the private sector as unprofitable or that he is seeking monopoly power.

The Two Lakes project is another boondoggle that should be avoided. If it is such a great plan then lease the land to developers at auction and let them have at it.

@9:48 you’re wrong about “Those who ruined things don't read this blog.”


Go to the “D. L. Gardner: Can We Learn What We Don’t Know?” title below to see all of the Libtard “You Gotta Believe Everything The Government Tells You” trolling Sheep.

" UNWANTED TRASH "

Speaking of,(and I'm not talking about people)...

Can someone explain why it seems many Jacksonians feel the need to throw shit out of their car window?

Even in some of the nicer sections (Woodlea & Woodhaven) neighborhoods, there's more litter on the roads than I've seen in much larger cities.

Jeez folks, just because you've finished your McDonald's extra value meal doesn't mean you have to toss out the bag at the intersection of Hanging Moss & Beasley.

Is it really that hard to keep it in your car until you reach a trash can ?

2:40, I think it's just another manifestation of an anti-social personality.

Weed, wine or otherwise, 11:56 is about the funniest thing I've read here in awhile... and he's spot-on... "wasp-waisted mothers" ...awesome!!