[RP TownTalk] Town Center of Dreams

[Paul Richards]

So realistically, just what would it cost to buy back the Town Center from Jemal?
   
  Paul
  49th Avenue and Sheridan

marc stauffer <marc.stauffer at verizon.net> wrote:
  Dear Bruce,

You make good points.

I submit that unless "we" control it it doesn't make any difference 
what "we" want or what kind of plan "we" have put together. The 
power to make any difference is held by the property owners. If "we" 
regain control, then "we" sure as hell will have to figure out right 
quick what "we" want to do with the asset (and the financial 
burden). I agree let's get started. How about "we" set up a 
Riverdale Park Realty Investment Trust? A quick calculation: if each 
adult resident of town (out of some 6,500 odd residents, the census 
says that 28% are under the age of 18, leaving approx. 4,680 
potential investors) were to invest $1,500 in a fund to "Buy Back Our 
Town", it would give a sum of $7 million to use to reclaim sites that 
we want. That is about $4 a day for an individual to designate to 
the fund over the course of a year. Or, if you split the donation 
time into a 3 yr period that ends up being $500 / year or about 
$1.40 /day to invest in the revitalization of our Town. This has 
been done before, its not a completely chuckle-headed notion. Look 
at the example of Rosedale in DC were the local community got 
together and bought an old estate in order to be able to control what 
was going to happen with it. There are other precedents for when 
townspeople have gotten completely fed up, they pooled their 
resources and took control. It's complicated and messy, but there 
are others to learn from and the current state of Town Center is 
pretty messy anyway.

Best,

Marc

Marc Stauffer
4913 Ravenswood Rd.
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