The Greensboro City Council hasn't announced plans tonight to discuss the Renaissance Community Co-op or the renovation of the City owned Bessemer Shopping Center. They're working on budget issues tonight and giving the scumbag developers more time to think of ways to steal all of Greensboro's tax dollars and my community's co-op grocery store. If you'd like to start at the beginning click on What The Media And The City Aren't Telling You About The Renaissance Community Co-op Part 1. If not just read below.
For years and years we were told that businesses weren't coming to Northeast Greensboro because the high crime rate made the cost of doing business in our neighborhood too high. As is evidenced by the 2010 Final Market Study done by MG Miller Valuations of Richmond, VA on behalf of Hudson/Barnett Group of Columbia, Maryland, the very idea that crime was keeping investment away from our neighborhood was and is a lie. As a matter of fact: for several years now, violent crime in our neighborhood has been lower that Downtown Greensboro as documented by none other than the Greensboro Police Department.
You see, every indication in the study was that the shopping center would be profitable and would be even more profitable in the long term and yet they still didn't invest-- why?
Investment hasn't been coming here because those in power don't want it here. At least not until everything could be bought dirt cheap. Now Mayor Perkins pitches grand ideas like his East Greensboro Redevelopment Plan while his own commercial real estate company, NAI Piedmont Triad has for sale signs on every corner in East Greensboro. Get it? I got it a very long time ago.
All the roads lead that way. While the City of Greensboro owned the shopping center after the corporate bailout of wealthy heiress Katherine Stern Weaver, they made no effort to rent the empty units even though a city employee by the name of Dyan Arkin dyan.arkin@greensboro-nc.gov was assigned as the City's lead agent in leasing and collecting rent on the property. The City has so far tried to keep that bit of info tidbit a secret from me but as usual, they couldn't. You see, people, even people who work for the city, so hate what is going on, secrets flow like cheap wine. And yet nothing changes...
And let's not forget the Mayor tried to convince the community to build the grocery store at another location, demanding a study, deliberately delayed the process and attempted to have the entire shopping center torn down at a time when the co-op was offering to buy the shopping center. Let's do the math, shall we? We spend taxpayer dollars to tear down a shopping center then sell it at a loss or sell it outright at a profit? Which would you pick? Which would you pick if you were a mayor in the midst of filing a $14 Million Dollar personal bankruptcy procedure and had your hands in developers' pockets.
When neighborhood groups approached Food Lion about opening a grocery store in the shopping center they were told by Food Lion management that while there was little doubt the Bessemer Shopping Center store would profit, building it there would draw customers away from other Food Lion Stores on East Market, Hicone Road, Golden Gate and others. In other words, Food Lion was concerned about competing with themselves rather than serving the very community that was asking for their business.
When Save-A-Lot was approached about bringing a store to our community their other store franchise owners blocked the effort in fear that they might actually have to compete. Well guess what? When the smoke clears every grocery store in Greensboro is going to regret the day they turned their backs on the working class poor of Northeast Greensboro.
Meanwhile, we read in the News & Record how the Phillips Foundation, the $10 charitable arm of Phillips Management Group, one of the Southeast's largest slumlords, just donated $3.5 Million to build a downtown performing arts center for Greensboro's elites.
As I have warned Greensboro "leaders" time and time again, the danger for them isn't in loosing a real estate deal, the danger for them is the possability that this story might get the attention of publications from outside of Greensboro. It was in-fact your's truly who established the 2004 Blogsboro Meetup Group that brought Greensboro to the attention of the Los Angeles Times. It was yours truly whose activities got the attention of Discovery Channel Cannada and 20 million viewers world wide in 2007. And let's not forget recently our own Greensboro Mayorial candidate George Hartzman, who has also taken my side on this issue and his debut in Rolling Stone for spilling the beans on Wells Fargo.
And when you do make that final fuck up there won't be enough money in the entire Downtown Greensboro Performing Arts Center budget grants and all to buy enough public relations to make the bad go away. Unlike the News & Record, my archives don't disappear. And my search engine optimization skills have been praised by the editors of more than one local publication. Shoot, I'm not even trying yet.
Don't believe me? I've got 16 hours a day to call and e-mail journalists nationwide. Somebody will bite and all you'll be able to do is hope for Christmas to come early. Ho, ho ho and rooms by the hour at the Biltmore, Zack.
If by chance you've changed your mind and want to begin with Part 1...
And if you've already done that you'll want to read What The Media And The City Aren't Telling You About The Renaissance Community Co-op Part 12
