Realty Trust and the Great Switcheroo
By: Mr. Wilson on
November 16, 2006
Of particular interest has been a parcel on the northeast corner of the intersection of 48th and O streets, where an abandoned Amoco station sits. The city paid $923,000 for the property, which was assessed by the county at $456,000. The parcel was owned by Realty Trust Group, which had a lease agreement with Starbucks that fell through when the city cut off corner access because of safety concerns.Realty Trust didn't get its Starbucks (or the $3.9 million it initially sued the city for as a result), but it did get a $475,000 premium over the assessed value of its property. Not a bad profit. But it gets better. Now that the O Street widening is finished, only one company bid for a redevelopment contract of the northeast corner of 48th and O. Who is the bidder? Realty Trust. They want to buy back their old property, and they will be able to use tax increment financing to do it. Not a bad deal, if you ask me. Realty Trust hasn't announced their proposed tenants for their project, but I'll give you one guess to come up with a prime candidate. Hat tip: Neal.
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This seems criminal.
At the very least, it’s taking advantage of taxpayers even if it is all legal.
I hope the Journal Star jumps on this one. Someone needs to answer for the hundreds of thousands of dollars that Realty Trust is gaming the system for.
Hmmm…maybe the people at Realty Trust are just “influential people with the means to make things happen”.
We should all just be happy that the 48th and O area is being developed. Right?
Seriously, this is one of the fears I have with the 2015 Visioning group and their grandiose plans - that in the midst of projects such as moving the State Fair, the taxpayers will be taken advantage of and some other folks are going to rake in the bucks at public expense.
I don’t see this as the same thing.
The 2015 group is talking about putting millions of dollars in private gifts toward some of these projects and putting together public private partnerships in some cases.
These millions of private dollars could simply stay in people’s pockets and we could continue on.
But I stand by my “influential people with the means to make things happen” statement. Omaha did it in the 90s and they now have a world-class medical center, the Qwest arena and convention center and the Holland Arts Center.
They had a vision and Lincoln could have its own vision. Doesn’t have to be the same thing but it’s good to see someone has a vision.
Maybe if this had started 10 years earlier Lincoln could have kept Gallup here. Who knows in what ways this vision can spur more growth.
That said, some of DK’s skepticism is a good thing to maintain. If anything, it will keep people honest.
Omaha was able to put funding for the Quest center in Omaha because of the hard work and vision of people like Hal Daub. In a recent essay I published at LincolnsBLOG.com Hal Daub said that Lincoln needs to rally around the fair and make it a focal point for lincoln. I don’t know how sticking it out in $6 million in steel sheds at 84th accomplishes that. Plus, even Perlman has said that the needs of the Fair and the University are intertwined by law. How can they remain reliant on eachother with such seperation. They need to be intigrated with eachother not seperated. Also, what the local media has refused to mention is the fact that there is serious motion underfoot to move the fair to Omaha or Grand Island if it is brought before the Unicameral. Omaha already has 5 more votes than Lincoln. We would have to rely on the rest of the state voting to keep it here purely out of tradition. What tradition would be left at 84th street? Hmmmm…
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