Well, you would be wrong if that is what you thought. Not even America's Biggest Boondoggle is (so far) brazen enough with its absurd propaganda to tout such, what with the Boondoggle apparently unable to even manage to build three simple little bridges over dry land to connect the Fort Worth mainland to an imaginary island.
No, this is a screencap from the Point Ruston website. Point Ruston is a free market private sector developer development on the Tacoma waterfront which has transformed a former industrial wasteland into a booming residential area and tourist attraction.
All done without employing, as project director, the unqualified son of a local congressperson to motivate the congressperson to secure federal funds to fund the project.
Tacoma's Point Ruston development at the north end of the Tacoma waterfront, and the Thea Foss Waterway development on the south end of the Tacoma waterfront have perplexed me ever since I visited them last month.
Perplexed me because it got me wondering how does such development take place in one town, while another town, Fort Worth, flounders along for years, trying to develop an industrial wasteland, whilst operating under the pretext the project is a vitally needed flood control and economic development scheme.
Yet, in Fort Worth, this "project" is not so vitally needed that the public is asked to support the project, you know, with money, but instead Fort Worth asks for charity in the form of federal funds in order to have sufficient capital to try to actualize their imaginary vitally needed flood control economic development project.
If Fort Worth's pitiful vision were actually viable wouldn't the free market come along and cause it to happen, such as what has happened at both ends of the Tacoma waterfront, during the past nine years, nine years in which little has happened, that anyone can see, with Fort Worth's embarrassing Trinity River Vision?
Soon after I returned to Texas, last month, I found myself freshly appalled by a new instance of Fort Worth Star-Telegram propaganda regarding America's Biggest Boondoggle. I blogged about this in Fresh Bridge Boondoggle Nonsense. A paragraph from the Part of Fort Worth’s Main Street closes as work revs up on Panther Island bridges article...
The private sector is interested in investing in the project. Last year, a Dallas company confirmed that it had bought nearly 2.5 acres on what will become part of Panther Island at Fourth and Main Streets for a 300-unit apartment community that is expected to cost $55 million. The development, Encore Panther Island, would be the first privately-funded development for the project.
The Boondoggle has spewed this "private sector interest" propaganda for years. Including mentioning, for years now, a Dallas company building an apartment community. After all these years the Trinity River Vision is still nothing anyone can actually see. If it were viable to build an apartment community why is it not under construction? If the Trinity River Vision is actually viable why is there not a lot of private sector building going on, such as what has taken place in Tacoma over the past nine years? And in other locations in America, locations which are actually economically viable and not a foolish poorly executed pipe dream?
Like I have already said, more than once, perplexing. And pitiful....
We'll see if you change your tune once Amazon locates their second headquarters on Panther Island! In reality, I think Amazon is unlikely to pick any locale in Texas since Texas is near the bottom in health care and seems unduly fascinated with bathroom bills. It isn't much different than when Boeing passed up Texas to locate their headquarters in Chicago.
ReplyDeleteSteve A, Amazon ending Fort Worth's string of embarrassing corporate headquarters failures by building HQ2 on the imaginary island as an unlikely possibility crossed my mind. This morning I read among the criteria Amazon needs a town with a lot of recreational options. This would seem to eliminate any town in the DFW zone.
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