I’m sure there have been success stories in local grant efforts to spur business, but lately the failures have been so spectacular that the rest of the picture is getting lost in the brilliant blur.
Ask local golf pro Dan Steen.
He was happily if quietly running a small driving range and pro shop called The Practice Tee on East 12th Street.
It wasn’t about to crack the Fortune 500 anytime soon but it was a solid seasonal business located on a somewhat bleak stretch of industrial corridor.
Steen, who didn’t own the property but rented with a handshake each year from Kaiser, was unceremoniously dumped when a Florida developer named Herb Fiss offered to build an apple juice boxing plant on the property.
Fiss was given some $300,000 in apple seed money and Steen was given the five-iron.
No sooner had the bulldozer knocked over the shop than Fiss moved his project first to the former IP property and then to Lake City, where the waiting continues.
Fiss has now defaulted on the grant money meant for development within city limits and city attorneys plan on taking him to court.
So the loan that was meant to boost employment not only didn’t build a new business but actually destroyed an existing one.
I can’t see that one going on anyone’s economic development resume.
Another loan for a Perry Square restaurant, this one in the $100,000 range is also in default.
Then there are the thousands more dollars that went into a proposed grocery store on Parade Street.
It was a six million dollar project that could only be appraised at three million dollars so, imagine this, the bankers wouldn’t sign on.
Efforts were made to shore the thing up with federal dollars, but as that was falling through the property continued to sit vacant.
Then the City backed out of a deal to sell the property to the initial investors when a better financed package came along, so the whole thing is headed (three guesses) to court.
Finally, there’s the granddaddy of them all, five million state dollars for a retail and business development on the site of the former Koehler Brewery.
The money purchased a demolition and a clean up but so far, little else.
Developer Brad Fairfield is asking for more time to secure the private side of financing, but isn’t it a little late in the game to still be seeking necessary dollars?
Development is risky business and there are no guarantees, but desperate people are sometimes willing to take chances outside the boundaries of common sense.
If mistakes are being made because hope and eagerness are outpacing due diligence, then that’s one thing.
If anyone is preying on a region’s desperation for success for short term personal gain, then that’s another thing entirely.