Street Jazz

With the Renaissance Towers zooming at light speed towards completion, a few questions are still being asked by those who look at the site of Fayetteville’s “Big Dig,” and lack the imagination to see the glory that the Towers will be, and how we will live better lives, once it is built.

The first rude question folks ask is:

If the new hotel is a success, what will happen to the business of the Radisson? Will it shut down, leaving Fayetteville with yet another empty building? .

They’re still touting the five floors of condos - when the condo market is crashing and burning in many parts of the country? Wasn't  it Aistophanes who wrote about those who live in "Cloud Cuckoo Land"? Perhaps that's what they should call the top few floors of this white elephant.  

What kind of idiot would say that the Renaissance Towers is zooming at us at “light speed” - oh, that was me.

And, of course, there is the whining. Yes, I’m whining, and some aldermen are whining, and lots of citizens are whining. But there is some classic whining from the two “developers” in today’s NWA Times.

“Alexander said that the reasons for the delay, and the biggest of those that ‘keeps getting glossed over’ is growth."

Yes, you bit off more than you can chew.

But the best bit of whining/finger pointing comes later in the article.

“‘When we increased the size and scope of that building from 150 rooms to 200 and from 16 stories to 18 stories, we knew we weren’t going to make the September ‘07 deadline,’ Alexander said. ‘The city knew that, too. We informed the city informally that we weren’t going to meet the deadline.’

How on God’s green earth do you “informally” tell the city that you aren’t going to meet your deadline?  Call a janitor? Mention it to someone in the men’s room? Write letters in code?

This “informal” business just doesn’t fly, or it shouldn’t, when so much money is at stake.

About the only bright spot in the entire story is the news that they plan to re-open the once popular club, the Brass Monkey. Now, that was a cool place.

rsdrake@nwark.com