Business First (January 21, 2011) delivers the goods with this hilarious CeeSaw moment, as the councilman stresses that it is a far better idea for the city to build a $15 million parking garage and give it to a penniless investor without a track record than using a fraction of this amount to empower upstairs occupancy in existing downtown buildings, including his own, under the faux reasoning that that high-dollar condo inhabitants might buy more diamonds than scruffy hipsters.
Whatever happened to Mainland Properties, anyway? By the time Riverview Towers breathed its last, the ill-fated concept had been altered to exclude the very condos erotically inspiring Caesar. Meanwhile, the same city scrambling to give away parking garage money in this instance as yet has no plan to support economic development downtown, one benefitting the businesses already here, which have yet to receive $15 of love, much less $15 million.
Is this place effed up, or what?
Level of council support uncertain
The level of support for the proposal from the nine-member New Albany City Council is difficult to gauge.
Councilman Robert Caesar, a downtown New Albany business owner, is firmly behind the plan, but he thinks support for the venture is mixed among the council members.
It will be a tough sell for some, he said, but he believes there could be five or six votes in favor of funding the garage.
“I think this will be a great project for the city of New Albany,” he said. “It’s going to give us, for the first time, a gathering point for the city,” similar to the Belvedere on Louisville’s waterfront. Caesar, who owns Endris Jewelers, said the condo aspect of the project, in particular, is exciting to him.
“If we could ever get living spaces down here, that is a game-changer that is unbelievable.”
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