Let me begin by explaining how the City of Greensboro came to own the Bessemer Shopping Center on the corner of Phillips Avenue and Elwell Avenue. When the Winn-Dixie store that anchored the store 15 years ago moved out and the other stores eventually left, the developer who owned the property was facing foreclosure by the banks. If I could remember the developer's name I would tell you but like I said it was 15 years ago.
As is too often the case here in Greensboro, the developer was quite well connected with the folks who were at that time seated on the Greensboro City Council. Among them were our current Mayor Robbie Perkins, our current Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson, District 2 Representative Goldie Wells who is no longer on council and others who are still active in Greensboro politics even if not currently elected to office. They arranged a cozy buyout deal that gave possession of the property to the City of Greensboro and saved one fat cat developer from loosing his ass financially. Who knows, considering that the shopping center was filled from 1971 until circa 1993 he might even have made a tidy profit with the help of taxpayers from all across the City of Greensboro.
Corporate welfare strikes again.
Fifteen years later a community group called the Renaissance Community Co-op to bring back the grocery story and eventually the shopping center. The numbers are crunched, the business model has been approved by the experts, the market studies indicate that RCC only needs to capture 5% of the available market within 1 mile of the store to turn a profit in the first year and pay off all loans in 10 years and what happens?
Corporate welfare strikes again. A developer now wants to buy the shopping center out from under the Renaissance Community Co-op and rent the building to the co-op.
This is so wrong. For starters: where has this developer been for the last 15 years while we have been doing without?
Who is this developer? Is it Skip Alston who supposedly represented this very neighborhood on the Guilford County Commissioners for 20 years and has already tried to steal the shopping center once before?
Or is it the developer the City bailed out in the first place?
Why show up now after the Fund for Democratic Communities, the RCC and other community groups have spent thousands to foot the bills for the research that proves the grocery store will be profitable.
Is this a local developer or will a huge portion of the community's money be removed from the community in the form of rent and be taken to no telling where, thereby defeating the purpose of building a community owned co-operative grocery store in the first place?
And if this is a local developer, what's to stop him or her from selling the shopping center to an out of town or even foreign owned investor at any point in the future.
If the Greensboro City Council votes to sell the old Bessemer Shopping Center to any developer then they are casting a vote to sell out my community and communities all over Greensboro.
You see, there are some of us that believe the RCC could be the first of many such community owned businesses to serve our entire city.
Update: I have since learned the owner of the Bessemer Shopping Center was the Residence Development Company established in 1923 and currently owned by Katherine S Weaver of none other than The Weaver Foundation.
Here is a copy of the City of Greensboro's deed for the property showing the Residence Development Company as the seller.
Continue reading: More On The Bessemer Shopping Center
As is too often the case here in Greensboro, the developer was quite well connected with the folks who were at that time seated on the Greensboro City Council. Among them were our current Mayor Robbie Perkins, our current Mayor Pro Tem Yvonne Johnson, District 2 Representative Goldie Wells who is no longer on council and others who are still active in Greensboro politics even if not currently elected to office. They arranged a cozy buyout deal that gave possession of the property to the City of Greensboro and saved one fat cat developer from loosing his ass financially. Who knows, considering that the shopping center was filled from 1971 until circa 1993 he might even have made a tidy profit with the help of taxpayers from all across the City of Greensboro.
Corporate welfare strikes again.
Fifteen years later a community group called the Renaissance Community Co-op to bring back the grocery story and eventually the shopping center. The numbers are crunched, the business model has been approved by the experts, the market studies indicate that RCC only needs to capture 5% of the available market within 1 mile of the store to turn a profit in the first year and pay off all loans in 10 years and what happens?
Corporate welfare strikes again. A developer now wants to buy the shopping center out from under the Renaissance Community Co-op and rent the building to the co-op.
This is so wrong. For starters: where has this developer been for the last 15 years while we have been doing without?
Who is this developer? Is it Skip Alston who supposedly represented this very neighborhood on the Guilford County Commissioners for 20 years and has already tried to steal the shopping center once before?
Or is it the developer the City bailed out in the first place?
Why show up now after the Fund for Democratic Communities, the RCC and other community groups have spent thousands to foot the bills for the research that proves the grocery store will be profitable.
Is this a local developer or will a huge portion of the community's money be removed from the community in the form of rent and be taken to no telling where, thereby defeating the purpose of building a community owned co-operative grocery store in the first place?
And if this is a local developer, what's to stop him or her from selling the shopping center to an out of town or even foreign owned investor at any point in the future.
If the Greensboro City Council votes to sell the old Bessemer Shopping Center to any developer then they are casting a vote to sell out my community and communities all over Greensboro.
You see, there are some of us that believe the RCC could be the first of many such community owned businesses to serve our entire city.
Update: I have since learned the owner of the Bessemer Shopping Center was the Residence Development Company established in 1923 and currently owned by Katherine S Weaver of none other than The Weaver Foundation.
Here is a copy of the City of Greensboro's deed for the property showing the Residence Development Company as the seller.
Continue reading: More On The Bessemer Shopping Center
