Quote:
Originally Posted by SDCAL
(Post 6716158)
Yeah, OTHER people's money. As if those who support preservation don't pay taxes.
I pay plenty of taxes, including property taxes for a place I have downtown.
I think I'm entitled to my opinion, but this "other people's money" argument is pretty disingenuous. If you don't think the theater is worth saving, make a logical argument like SDfan did instead of this ridiculous "other people's money" garbage. It reminds me of the people on Medicare who go around saying they are against their taxes going to socialized medicine. :koko:
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Jeez SDCAL, no need to wet your panties. Here’s a newsflash. I also support preservation.
In fact, my firm spent a ton of money in the late 1990s-2000s trying to save… guess what… The California Theatre. We were committed to preserving the theatre and feature it, as a theater, as part of a mixed-use project that we hoped would catalyze the west “C” Street corridor.
But even back then, the building was so structurally degraded that predicting ultimate costs was almost impossible. Hard to get investors to buy in on a project when so many fundamental unknowns remain. So despite years of effort with tax-credits and other possible subsidies, we simply could not get the final financing put together. No bad guys here. We just couldn’t make it work.
We looked at it again just last year. It’s a challenging site. They were asking $10.6mm (not sure what they’re asking now,). That’s a tough nut to crack just to start, but not the only significant difficulty. It will take someone far better at development/redevelopment than I to make it work, if it can work.
Do I think the site’s ownership has deliberately let the structure decay? That’s certainly possible, but they’re the people who put up their hard money when they bought the site. They’re the one’s paying all the carrying costs all these years. If you want to buy them out, have at it and feel free to risk
your own money to make it happen. Then you can do whatever you want.
I will applaud you. However, I won’t hold my breath waiting for that to happen. As we all know, talk is cheap and in addition to that, some seems pretty angry. That usually goes hand-in-hand with ignorance.
At present, my firm is involved with a significant preservation project in the East Village. We are working with an ownership group that also values preservation and are optimistic that we can successfully execute our shared vision, one that is completely in accord with the vision of Makers Quarter. This kind of work doesn’t come cheap and we both have to make some financial sacrifices for success. And guess what else, in addition to our own, we are going to use
other people’s money to make this happen. We are asking them to share some of these sacrifices. I can be neither frivolous, nor “generous” with it. Why?
Because it’s not mine.
We’re also pursuing another historic structure in the Egyptian Quarter in Hillcrest. Again, we are committed to preserving the present building and operating it in its historic use.
Like the California Threatre, it’s a risky site fraught with challenges and will require more equity investment (equity money being more expensive than debt, but I’m sure you knew that). If you’d like to come up with the $5 or so mil in equity we need to raise, we can probably move forward in 60 days. I won’t hold my breath for that either.
I’m sure everyone on these boards would love to just wave a magic wand and add “richness and vitality” to our shared urban fabric. I know I would and occasionally, I get lucky and do precisely that. Unfortunately, magic wands are in short supply. In lieu of wands, we typically need
other people’s money.
Yes, you are fully entitled to your opinion, even when you confirm your utter ignorance while doing so. (I have to admit, not sure what your taxpaying status has to do with expressing your opinion.) That’s part of the beauty of America. The right to be an angry idiot and express it in public.
Mission accomplished.