Arkansas Blog: Development daydreams dashed

« More water applicants | Main | Hold, please, for Sen. Pryor »

Development daydreams dashed

The Northwest Arkansas Times laments how it was taken by the soft-soap peddled by the developers who got significant Fayetteville taxpayer help to tear down the old Mountain Inn and in the form of valuable tax cuts in a Tax Increment Finance District created at their behest. End result, an ugly hole in the ground and no promise that construction of a hotel and condos will ever begin.

Thanks for the tip to The Iconoclast, who closes the circle with news of a still-more-bodacios request for a public handout by some of the same Fayetteville developers.

The supposed free market champions from the Chamber of Commerce sneer at peons who toil at newspapers for our poor understanding of business. But it has always seemed simple to me. If you can make a profit without a state welfare payment you have a sound business. If you can't, your business probably will fail. And maybe it should.

Posted by Max Brantley on July 28, 2008 04:25 PM | Permalink

Comments

so how much money did Fayetteville actually lose on the deal?

Posted by: eark | July 28, 2008 04:46 PM

To round it off to the nearest million, 3, so far, and counting.

Posted by: ozarkrazo | July 28, 2008 04:55 PM

Couple that Three Million with the SIXTY THREE MILLION the new sewer plant over-runs cost the people of Fayetteville and

66 Million Reasons not to support Dan Coody.

Posted by: eLwood | July 28, 2008 05:22 PM

For many years no real estate deal in NWA w/o J Frank getting his nose in the trough, albeit often passively, from boosyers. Was he cut in on this deal as well?

Posted by: Diogenes | July 28, 2008 05:26 PM

"If you can't, your business probably will fail. And maybe it should."

Off with your head, you pinko liberal. You don't fit in today's modern American Corporate State. Heil Benito.

Posted by: Cato | July 28, 2008 06:01 PM

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Name:

Email Address:

URL:

Remember personal info?

Comments: The only required information is the comment itself. If you supply a URL it will be displayed. Email will not be displayed.

Twin Rivers Indians rise

Date: 3/18/2010
By: Leslie Newell Peacock
Parents desperate to reverse the dissolution of their Northeast Arkansas school district by the state are declaring that their children are part of a minority group - Native American - and that the closure was discriminatory. /more/

Lotto machines
Date: 3/18/2010
By: Arkansas Times Staff
Shortly after the lottery launched in September 2009, the Times reported that the lottery commission would roll out ticket vending machines in the spring. There's no sign of them yet, but some legislators hope to ban the machines, saying they make it too easy for children to buy tickets. /more/

Congo John
Date: 3/18/2010
By: Arkansas Times Staff
Rep. John Boozman visited 14 countries, including such places as Djibouti and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Yet the peripatetic Boozman is not considered expert in foreign affairs. Far from it. "He's a little behind," Republican leaders say privately. /more/

Home / Blogs / This Week / Entertainment / Ark. News Headlines / Multimedia / Classifieds / Subscribe / Contact