Developers love to tell you how they've invested in any given geographical area and tout their investments as some sort of gift to that area. And in some cases they're right. But in too many cases what these investors are investing in is simply existing property that just happens to be located in said geographic area.
For example, if I buy an existing building and simply put that building on the market as a rental or attempt to flip that building then I'm not investing in that neighborhood, I'm simply speculating on a piece of property. And while speculation is legal it is never good for the local economy. It was downtown speculators like Milton Kern and Roy Carroll that drove up prices on downtown Greensboro properties and prevented companies like Red Hat and Citrix from locating in Greensboro. And to think, all these years, Greensboro's elites have been calling these men heroes.
Seems like all you need to be a hero these days is a fat wallet and a few connections willing to look the other way.
Now take Roy Carroll Sr for example. He's the man Roy Carroll Jr stole the family business from. Roy Carroll Sr bought land, built homes at a time when Greensboro was growing and sold those homes to people who needed homes. Roy Jr uses taxpayer dollars to build empty office and industrial parks and $Million Dollar downtown condos that are only 1/3 filled. See the difference: Roy Sr provided something people needed at the time, Roy Jr builds things no one needs and uses his connections (Mayor Perkins) to get the taxpayers to foot the bills.
As I've pointed out before, developers seem to have a problem understanding the differences between economic indicators and economic drivers. Development, be it commercial, industrial or housing starts, has never been an economic driver but it is in-fact a very good economic indicator-- a measuring stick of where the economy stands. And attempts by governments to pump up the economy with anything other than basic publicly owned infrastructure improvements will always result in a new economic loss. And sometimes even basic publicly owned infrastructure improvements can and do result in economic loss.
When a developer tells me he's invested in a community I expect to see that he has built some sort of farm or factory there-- something that produces on and on. Retail can be an investment but retail is second rate in terms of return to the community. Investing in a community is something that provides long term jobs that stay in that community-- not simply buying a building or even building a big box retail store that will someday become abandoned for a bigger parking lot near the bypass.
These are the things I plan to speak with Marty Kotis about in the upcoming days as frankly I'm sick and tired of developers telling us how they've invested in Greensboro when in reality all they've done is bought property or built buildings. I hope he can understand.
After all, land and buildings do not a community make.
