It is unusual for the StarNews editors to EVER take exception with the actions of the Wilmington City Council, but they did on Saturday:
The city has spent a total of $4.75 million to buy back the 2.3-acre piece of property, which it owned up until 1997 when PB&G co-owner Gene Merritt bought it for $1.5 million. . . Ten years later, the concrete monstrosity was undeveloped and the city bought half the site back for $2.6 million with the idea that the site could become a small urban park. Then in June, the city council unanimously decided to pay another $2.15 million to get the rest of it back. . . Now another developer, Jim McFarland, says he’ll take the whole thing off the city’s hands for $2.5 million. Calculators up! Compute. The developer, who says he’d put up a hotel and parking area, is offering a little more than half of what the city spent to buy back what the taxpayers once owned in the first place. That would be a $2.25 million loss for the city, but a great deal for the developer.
LOL. . the editors don’t have a problem with the city buying a second golf course, the troubled Olsen Park, the delayed 3rd St. project, the continual wrecks with the 5th St. fountain, the actual utilization of the convention center or the $37m proposed baseball stadium, but they’re spot on with this boondoggle of a parking deck.
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