The Re-Renaissance Plan's Wish List of Dead Buildings it Wants Alive


In the project description in the environmental impact report for SanTana's Re-Renaissance Plan, there's a list of what city planners call “related development projects”–existing structures and proposed lofts, towers, and other buildings Mayor Don Papi Pulido and his acolytes have talked about for years as crucial to “revitalizing” the county seat. What's funny about the list is that so many of them were DOA even in the boom times or feature Papi-approved scoundrels who don't have the finances nowadays to build a Lego set.

The West End Lofts? First planned in 2003, and the lot where they were supposed to be built remains empty. Hell, the same developer was barely able to sell all the units in the Santiago Street lofts, and some of those purty places have already foreclosed. One Broadway Plaza, that Freudian phallus of megadeveloper Mike Harrah's burly mind? Don Papi's trying to finagle the law to help Harrah reach the minimum to even begin thinking about starting.

And then there are the outright jokes.

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The City Place lofts? Those dodos have barely sold, even after their prices have been chopped multiple times, even after auctions. And its proposed tower, City Place Sky Lofts? Maybe when City Place developer Robert Bisno gets out of bankruptcy and pays back the $250 million or so he owes to firms. The Cordoba Apartments? Were supposed to be near the Bowers Museum–the other day, I was walking near it and found the big sign that promised its imminent arrival in the alley, grimy and covered with dust. 1st and Cabrillo Towers? Did they ever sell all the units at those Skyline Macarthur towers?

There's others, but I think you get the point. Don Papi Pulido and his huevones constantly speak vision, vision, vision–but there's been so many failed projects by the very people they want to put at the forefront of the Re-Renaissance Plan that I find apologists to it blind or corrupt or something. Hey, Brave New Urbanists: dontcha think the city should complete at least one successful project before embarking on a such an ambitious remaking of the city's core? I wouldn't trust them with successfully rearranging the salt-and-pepper shakers at Pop's…

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