Greg House wiser than Broyles/Forsyth? Pie in the sky

Saturday's Northwest Arkansas Times offered a story titled "Developer puts Dickson Street project on hold."

"The developers behind
St. Charles Plaza
are going to wait a while longer before starting construction of the luxury condos behind Collier’s Drug Store," reporter Adam Wallworth asserts in the lead paragraph.

Greg House of Houses Inc. "said the development team is waiting to pre-sell enough of the units before starting construction, which could be next year," Wallworth writes.

"As far as the project goes, House said the development team is not in any hurry. He said that they own the property and it takes care of itself," Wallworth writes.
WISDOM: Don't tear down revenue-producing property for a pipe dream until you wake and understand where you stand. Aspen Ridge's developers started
wrecking dwellings
on their property before getting official approval for a project. The Aspen Ridge team wanted to make the low-income housing, which varied from very cheap and in very poor condition to moderately priced and in excellent condition, disappear before the words "obtainable housing" or "affordable housing" could start cropping up. They arranged to get the City Council to take a bus tour of the land AFTER the residents were moved out of the mobile homes and debris remained on the ground, suggesting the area was always like that. This supported their argument that they were "REVITALIZING south Fayetteville," a code phrase for "get the poor people out of town." Next, they took out the trees and ran the homeless people and the wildlife out of the woods. But by then they had the planned zoning district approved.

House is not under pressure to cut off his nose to spite his face, as the Aspen Ridge people appeared to be.

"House said that, because the project doesn’t have to go through large-scale development, all they have to do is pull the building permits. The designs are done and they’re marketing the property, he said, so they can afford to wait a while," Wallworth wrote.

LACK OF WISDOM: The city doesn't require large-scale development approval for parcels of less than 1 acre, even if they are six stories high.

"The plans are for a six-story, 80,000-square-foot building that will replace the four houses that occupy the property along St. Charles Avenue and Watson Street. Secured, covered parking, a clubhouse with bar, workout area and a swimming pool are included in the plans for the project, which, at under an acre, does not have to go through largescale development," Wallworth writes.

LACK OF WISDOM: The city should have been regulating the destruction of existing buildings for years. A high percentage of the buildings torn down were serving the community quite well.

CASE IN POINT: Destruction of the Restaurant on the Corner and The Grill. The parking lot between the two was known to many as "The center of the world." It seemed that vehicles large and small hauling the rich and powerful pulled in daily, while University professors (the intellectual heart of the city), the hitch-hiking youngsters from all three coasts and a few from the Canadian-border area, walked in. Every other social level of local society also was represented there.

That was a memorable, unforgettable spot for people growing up in the sixties through the 90s. How many long-time residents of Fayetteville actually can name a business now on that previously magical acre?

LACK OF WISDOM: Buying land and paying to have a project planned with BORROWED money and expecting to presell unbuilt expensive dwellings to people who have as yet not even appeared in Northwest Arkansas. Or maybe the condo and townhouse builders just expect to keep taking one another's buyers away. That fantasy is what must have motivated people to start up so many unneeded banks in Northwest Arkansas. Most of those now-shrinking outfits were here only to get hold of mortgages and sell them out of state. They could not have even dreamed of sustaining themselves in this bloated market. Surely, our distinguished colleges of business are turning out MBAs with better judgment than has been shown in NWA in recent decades.

A great many people are wishing the Aspen Ridge folk had considered some obvious reasons not to remove everything including incredibly rich and rare topsoil from the nearly 30-acre site and waited until the market and money were right to do ANYTHING before creating a
wasteland.