Ever wonder who the actual players are for the proposed downtown Greensboro performing Arts Center and what their stakes are?
Mayor Robbie Perkins, commercial realtor and dealer in this high stakes game heads things up. As the owner of NAI Piedmont Triad the largest commercial reality company in all of central North Carolina, Robbie deals the cards knowing that no matter who loses, the odds are on the house. Mayor Perkins is a resident and the listing agent for Center Point-- the City funded millionaire condo that was once known as the Wachovia Building and hundreds of other commercial properties.
One of the biggest players in the Greensboro performing arts game is millionaire developer, Roy Carroll, owner of Center Pointe and Park View Development, Inc. Roy has a bit of a problem right now in that most of Center Pointe remains vacant-- a result of yet another game in which he played and lost but not before getting $3 Million Dollars from the Greensboro City Council to help him build his penthouse suite on the roof at Center Pointe.
According to Greensboro Interim City Attorney, Waterman, Robbie Perkins has illegally cast votes on behalf of Roy Carroll while seated as Mayor of Greensboro. Conflicts of interest abound.
Robin Sauls is the owner of the Greensboro News & Record whose parking lot is one of the proposed locations for a downtown PAC. Robin has a bit of a problem in that his newspaper, like most newspapers, is going broke but for Robin the problem is even bigger than most in that the value of his business is somewhat less than the value of the entire city block on which News & Record sits. "A recent analysis suggested that the real estate is worth more than the enterprise. $9M - $12M for the property and $4M - $7M for the enterprise."
Then there's Milton S Kern and his partners in the Empire Room aka, Elm Street Center. Milton Kern ran a faux mayoral campaign in 2007 so Yvonne Johnson wouldn't appear to be the only candidate. Uncle Milton and company have been trying for years now to get the City of Greensboro to tear down and replace their dilapidated old parking decks with a bigger parking deck with the bill to be paid by the taxpayers. At least one of the designs being pitched for the downtown center shows it's parking garage to be placed where Uncle Milton's creepy old parking garage currently stands.
Ross Harris is Mayor Perkins' campaign manager and appointed head of the Greensboro Performing Arts Center Task Force. Ms Harris if the founder of HarrisPartners.com, an advertising and public relations firm located in Greensboro. She controls the task force Twitter and Facebook pages while hiding behind the charge.
Walker Sanders of the Community Foundation of Greater Greensboro also sets at the table. He's another who has found it easy to hide behind the charge while ignoring the community at large to concentrate on downtown Greensboro.
I believe that by forcing city leaders to invest in my neighborhood over downtown Greensboro, we can set a precedent that makes our leaders understand that our neighborhoods-- all of Greensboro's neighborhoods-- with our tens of thousands of blocks containing 99% of Greensboro's 270,000 residents, are just as important as their 99 tiny blocks downtown.
I'll update and add more as I dig it up. Help is always appreciated.
Continue to article #96. A Fair Greensboro Performing Arts Center Survey.
