Time To Worry About Sundance Sasha With Lady Whistleworth

 

Yesterday Elsie Hotpepper pointed me to a couple news articles about what is currently worrying locals regarding downtown Fort Worth.

This morning, via the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, I saw the headline you see screen capped. 

So, the Star-Telegram is also reporting on that which is worrying downtown Fort Worth.

Basically, what is worrying people is troubles with the management of the downtown Fort Worth organization known as Sundance Square.

Sundance Square perplexed me, and others, upon first visiting downtown Fort Worth and seeing signage pointing to Sundance Square. But, there was no square in Sundance Square, til years later when one of the downtown parking lots was turned into Sundance Square Plaza. I forget how many years it was til I learned Sundance Square was the name given a downtown Fort Worth revitalization project.

I remember learning this and thinking, yikes, if this is the revitalized version, what was this sleepy downtown like before getting vitalized?

Is that homage to Fort Worth's heritage, known as Heritage Park, still a boarded up closed eyesore on the north end of downtown Fort Worth? Or has Heritage Park been revitalized? Heritage Park at the north end of downtown Fort Worth, and the Water Gardens at the south end, are really the only two things about downtown Fort Worth which are even remotely unique.

Well, I guess it could be said that downtown Fort Worth is also unique in that it is the only big city downtown in America without any department stores. Or full sized grocery stores.

Because of the lack of shopping venues downtown Fort Worth is a ghost town on the busiest shopping day of the year, that being Black Friday, the day after Thanksgiving. We have made mention of this in various venues, including Day After Thanksgiving on my Eyes on Texas website, and multiple blog posts, including Having Fun Looking For Black Friday Shoppers Today In Downtown Fort Worth.

The two articles about Sundance Square which Elsie Hotpepper directed me to are...

'It is a shell': Reata's departure isn't the only issue facing Fort Worth's Sundance Square

and 

What's the Deal With Sundance Square?

The comments following the What's the Deal article are quite informative and enlightening.

Basically locals with an interest in downtown Fort Worth, such as restaurant owners, and other business owners, have been having trouble with a woman named Sasha Bass, the young trophy wife of Fort Worth billionaire, Ed Bass, who is 76 years old.

A paragraph from the Wikipedia article about Ed Bass...

Bass is a long-time supporter of downtown redevelopment, and has been described as a "leader in what is recognized as one of the most successful urban revitalization efforts in America". He and his family began the Sundance Square development in 1982. It combines commercial and residential space in the central business area of Fort Worth, and it received the Fort Worth Chamber of Commerce's Spirit of Enterprise award in 2004. He led the development of Bass Performance Hall, financed without public funding, which opened in 1998.

The high cost of parking in downtown Fort Worth has become a troubling issue, and may account for being one of the reasons for the drop in the number of downtown Fort Worth visitors.

Since I have been keeping my eyes on Fort Worth I have witnessed many incredibly stupid things. The stupidest may have been letting Radio Shack build a new corporate headquarters at the north end of downtown Fort Worth. A corporate headquarters which Radio Shack could not afford, which was eventually turned into a Tarrant Community College campus.

The reason the Radio Shack debacle was stupid was that it ruined the other thing remotely unique about downtown Fort Worth, in addition to Heritage Park and the Water Gardens, that being the acres of free parking, with the world's shortest subway line taking visitors from the parking lot into the heart of downtown Fort Worth. 

Free to park, free to ride the subway.

I frequently frequented downtown Fort Worth when the parking and the subway made it easy. After the subway and parking was destroyed I only visited downtown Fort Worth a few more times.

The Sundance Square Sasha Bass Scandal has spawned another amusing thing Elsie Hotpepper directed me to, that being the Lady Whistleworth Instagram page, where Lady Whistleworth is the "Center of morality, governance, fashion - precisely because they are all broken."

No one knows who Lady Whistleworth is. Below is a screencap from the Lady Whistleworth Instagram. And below the screencap you can read the most recent Instagram posting from Lady Whistleworth. And just to be clear, the Evil Queen to which Lady Whistleworth refers is Sasha Bass...

Dearest Readers,

Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock.

While we all learned this morning that a long time iconic downtown restaurant is unfortunately looking for a new location, this author has also heard that the dark cloud of Servitude is beginning to fold inward against the evil oppressor.  It seems, you see, that time is indeed running out for our Queen. As previously penned, there is increasing pressure with lenders to resolve the mortgages concerning the Queen’s properties which are on the verge of default. The problem is whilst she actively shops new lenders, in what we all hope will be another one of her futile endeavors, she is also actively working against tenants and commerce in general! Raise the rents? Check! Raise parking prices? Check! Pay any tenant to leave the Square that does not share her “vision”? Check! One would think that this rate of failure, combined with her immeasurable grandiosity, should finally prove persuasive enough to bring justice to Fort Worth!

At this point it may also be instructive to review the Queen’s resume, which won’t take long: No college degree. No career. No business experience. Family history of criminal activity, arrests, convictions, shoplifting, green card marriage, & disenfranchisement of all associated Royals. How could a lender look at this background and track record and do anything BUT foreclose? The real silver living to the cloud though is that perhaps the Brothers will hear the cries of their fair City, and come to the rescue. It would resolve things for all parties involved.

God Save the Queen? No, God Save Fort Worth!

 

Ever Yours,

Lady Whistleworth

___________________________

The verbiage of all the Lady Whistleworth postings is at the same high level of elevated snarkiness as the above example.

Upon reading the Lady Whistleworth words I thought she might be Elsie Hotpepper. I asked Elsie if it was she, to which Elsie said no, it was not she. So, who is Lady Whistleworth?