City wants GRTC bus barns?

Just what Richmonders need — another controversy over developing publicly-owned real estate. In Wednesday’s Richmond Times-Dispatch we’re told that Mayor Dwight Jones wants The City to buy the GRTC’s property where the buses sleep at night.

Richmond Mayor Dwight C. Jones wants the city to buy the coveted site of GRTC Transit System next to the Fan District and to guide private development of the property.

Tammy D. Hawley, press secretary to Jones, confirmed the city’s interest in the property, currently assessed at $3 million, and said the issue is being discussed by the boards of GRTC and the Richmond Redevelopment and Housing Authority. She said it is unclear what type of development might be planned and whether a sale to the city will occur.

Click here to read the entire article.

This story is puzzling to me. No doubt about that property being valuable, but why should the City go after it now? Doesn’t the City already own too much undeveloped/underdeveloped property?

Click here to read comments from Melissa Savenko.

Posted in Business, Civic Groups, Hub's Blurbs

10 Comments.

How about them school buildings?!

Scott Burger @ July 15th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Scott,

Well, I don’t want to jump the gun and say there’s no possible good in the City acquiring that property. But on the face of it, this seems like a strange concept.

Don’t you wonder where Richmond would get the money to jump into the land speculation/real estate development business? And, I suspect Melissa Savenko is right when she says that bus barn parcel is worth a lot more than $3 million.

Instead, I’d like to see the City selling off its properties that it appears to be incapable of managing properly or developing on its own.

For instance, why hasn’t it sold the UR Stadium? UR pays $1-a-year to use it.

It should sell the Landmark Theatre, which has to be subsidized to the tune of $500,000 every year.

FTRea @ July 15th, 2009 at 2:37 pm
My point is that everyone wants to talk about stadiums or bus depots.

How about the school buildings?

Open High’s historic Grace Arents building needs an elevator and solar panels among other improvements.

http://www.oregonhill.net/tag/open-high/

Scott Burger @ July 15th, 2009 at 4:12 pm
But yeah, I agree with you on a lot of other points, including the Landmark. As you proabably know, the City is ‘investing’ millions into renovating the Landmark as part of the Center Stage’s City of the Future deal (remember when the City of The Future was supposed to be primarily about renovating schools?).

This is where Wilder really failed us, and I hope Mayor Jones recognizes it and chooses differently. He is a new Mayor At Large.
Unfortunately, every Richmond Mayor (like Trani, btw) seems to want to build something that they can point to instead of putting their citizen constituents’ interests first.

Scott Burger @ July 15th, 2009 at 5:09 pm
Reality check. Scott – the schools are the only ones authorized to spend dollars to build schools, not the city. Would you give them a blank check or taxing authority to do so? They are worse than the city at everything as the last 40 audits have shown. Until they show they are comppetent, why would you pump millions into the system?

Terry – I think if you dig, you will see that Jones has allocated much of Wilder’s city of the future money for building a new jail. The Landmark has always been scheduled for renovations, they just turned it over to SMG which is a whole other matter.

Nevertheless you have a school system that can’t count spare change or build new schools and a mayor who wants to take tens of millions of dollars of hard to get credit and build a new jail to house all our future criminals.

What vision.

Anonymous @ July 15th, 2009 at 9:42 pm
Reality check- its not just about money- as I keep pointing out its about attention. The local corporate media would rather have us argue over sports teams than really see what shape the local school buildings are in.

Reality check- if its all the school admin’s fault then why did I have to go to City Council two years or so ago for a public hearing and literally pound the podium in order to stop Pantele from interrupting me and get Council to agree to add back in the $5 million for ADA improvements they had previoulsy cut to the school’s capital budget?

That said, I am disappointed that my school rep, Betsy Carr has not done more to bring attention and accontability to schools and instead is now running for state office. The “working-behind-the scenes” stuff only goes so far yet sadly is Richmond politicians’ favorite mode of operation.

Its time for this City to grow and get their priorities in order. SCHOOLS BEFORE STADIUMS!

Scott Burger @ July 16th, 2009 at 9:31 am
Last time I checked the stadium idea in the bottom died and the schools still stink. And you just don’t get that the schools asked for the money and the city gave them the money. That’s all the city can do. The schools don’t have to spend it on what the city tells them and as you pointed out, they DIDN’T. They got the money and ignored the ADA improvements. Nothing the city can do about it. Get that through your head. You just proved that giving them money to build new schools will just go to waste until you have competent school leaders which we don’t have.

Anonymous @ July 16th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Actually, some ADA improvements did happen, but there is still more to go. City leaders have still not met the ADA budget. It does not have to be this way…

Money is still needed, and like I keep saying, attention!

Scott Burger @ July 17th, 2009 at 1:25 am
This is a good start:

http://www.timesdispatch.com/rtd/news/local/education/article/FUND17_20090716-223006/280484/

Scott Burger @ July 17th, 2009 at 1:28 am
It is about being able to show jobs created.

Stadiums need uneducated and unskilled workers. So, they keep the quality of education provided as low as possible and they have created the pool of labor for the stadium and future inmates to justify the jails.

Tommy2Guns @ July 17th, 2009 at 11:15 am