This is the kind of rot that happens when government sticks its nose into private business. Thanks Weinzapfel!
RevWright, Don’t forget to thank the idiotic ERC that created both McCurdy and Executive Inn disasters.
The decay of this graceful historic treasure is a community tragedy. The City cares so little, they have not even closed some of the west facing windows.
At least the tag artist some talent. Maybe the Evansville Museum can commission them to do a collection when the Picasso is sold and that opportunity is thrown away.
You know, I feel so much like an armchair quarterback sometimes, but some of the decisions made by City officials and the lack of any real trust in the free market principles that built grand structures like the McCurdy in the first place are just lamentable.
It’s doubly difficult to watch when you speed up the reel of time and look at the “revitalization” efforts of the 60’s and how they just tore down all those beautiful historic structures to build ugly, bland, concrete behemoths and parking lots that would bisect Main Street, only then to fast forward 40 years and see politicians now deciding they want to “revitalize” downtown and make it more like it used to be.
Pick up one of those Evansville coffee table books with all the pictures before the “revitalization” of the 60s and tell me government isn’t directly responsible for the utter DESTRUCTION of this town’s character and history…and they did it for the same reasons they’re still doing it today – so they can be big shots and spend other people’s money.
With all that graffiti and a broken lantern , broken window I sure hope they don’t decide to blow it up
The real question could be what are “they” planning for this future plot of land? Whose back will be scratched for the lenghty demolition by neglect plan? The Prime real estate property could be an ideal location for some company headquarters (think Riverside One-now Vectren and/or ONB. Maybe it is a future natatorium or aquarium? Although I don’t see the “powers that be” with any foresight. Their foresight might envision a state of the art wagon wheel manufacturer or even a new pony express hub.
I’m actually with you here… Who benefits from painting the McCurdy as an old, rundown, busted up wreck that is beyond repair? Answer: the very people who’d rather see it condemned and spend money tearing it down. Give it another 2 or 3 years and that will be the “solution” that’s put forward.
There needs to be a third option in the polling question. That option should be the same is it was with Robert’s Stadium – SELL IT. Auction the building off. Get government out of it and let someone have a shot at developing it without interference.
Is it just me, or is this deja vu?
The City paid $600,000 for a small parking lot next door. They would have to give the McCurdy away for $1 for anyone to take over the huge rehab project.
with the $600,000 little parking lot thrown in.
You’re just speculating. You have no idea what that property could bring until the day of an auction.
You know, people do still develop properties privately. Not everyone needs a spender of last resort. At any rate, selling it at open auction with no strings is certainly preferable to having yet another government-run debacle on our hands.
Of course there are those who would insist the deal came with strings attached, like our friend Jordan Baer, restricting use and requiring this or that, but I’m a rare breed…I actually believe the free market will make the best use of resources in the pursuit of a profit.
We failed to do it with Roberts Stadium. Now, not only is the Stadium slated for demo, but any prospect of that property generating revenue again will be lost on the alter of government spending. We have a choice. I suggest we try something different with the McCurdy.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have a problem with it being sold as long whoever bought it was going to reuse it.
But at the same time, I don’t see why we couldn’t lease it just like you are proposing to do with the Picasso painting. The overhead was already down pretty low on the facility these past few years and that’s not even counting the fact that the water pumps would be gone. It would easily be solvent with tenants that can’t afford the Ford Center.
If the city put SMG or Venuworks in charge and got out of the way, the facility would have done fine without stepping on the toes of any other facility.
I thought it already belongs to a private entity who owes back taxes. But then maybe you have an idea what it should be, and when Rick Davis is mayor, he’ll appoint you to a blue ribbon committee to come up with a Save the McCurdy committee.
You do realize that I was talking about Roberts and not the McCurdy correct? You think we should put SMG or Venuworks in charge of the McCurdy?
And as for the “blue ribbon committee” I doubt Rick would have wasted all of our time assembling a committee whose outcome was already decided. I’ll leave things like that up to your side, assuming there’s any left in office after the next round of elections.
The subject is the McCurdy. Your wandering off subject is typical though.
You have no idea of three things: What Rick Davis would do as mayor, what “side” I happen to be on, and whether I even care who is left after the next round of elections.
I’m pretty sure Mr. Linzy was discussing Roberts Stadium and I was too. Everyone but you. Yea, you’re right I have no idea what side you’re on. You’re probably a Rick Davis fan aren’t you?
I’m pretty sure Rick wouldn’t have torn down Roberts. Stranger things have happened but there were better odds of Lloyd giving that committee a fair chance than Rick tearing down Roberts.
No.
No.
Yes.
You don’t know, and
You don’t know.
Keep those blinders on, man.
You’re batting 200.
Oops. Insert another “No” after that single “Yes.”
Now you’re batting 167.
What? That’s the best you can come up with to respond?
I was talking mainly about the McCurdy and using the Roberts debacle to buttress my argument that the McCurdy should be sold.
I am sad to see that you gentlemen (or ladies if the shoe fits) cannot see the forest for the trees here. You’d rather bicker about political parties than seek common ground or common sense solutions together.
Jordan, you cannot deny that trusting in government agents has not been particularly successful in meeting your goals of saving historic structures. By my calculation so far you are 0 for 1. (We don’t know if they are going to follow through yet on either the Gresham House or the Cemeteries commitments.)
It was, as I pointed out above, government that tore down most of the historic downtown buildings in the 1960s to make parking lots of all things. It was government that decided to tear down Roberts Stadium, despite the fact that we all know their reasons are complete BS.
They could have instantly saved taxpayers $10 million by selling at auction. This might have generated revenue on the sale that might have totaled in the millions, or could have been as little as a $1. Either way, we all would have found ourselves instantly ahead from an account ledger standpoint of ANY of the other ideas put forward by Option A or Option B people.
Furthermore, a private entity might have created something worthwhile approaching the building with an entrepreneurial mindset. Someone might have created jobs and revenue on that site with the existing building. Now, it’s also true they might have seen more value in the property by tearing it down and building something else there. That is the nature of capitalism. Private property means private property. But we already know what government decided to do – spend more money.
If you had backed Option C when I suggested it, who knows, we might be looking out across the parking lot at Roberts right now at a budding private gym with olympic swimming pool and tennis courts or a health center. Who knows? The point is I don’t know, you don’t know, the Mayor doesn’t know. We don’t have the capital to put forward for developing a property like that, so what entitles us to speculate on what it should be over someone who is risking his/her own ass financially? Surely they would have every incentive on earth to make the property into something that would see a return and be productive. The Mayor has no such incentive. The Council has no such incentive. And frankly neither do you or I.
If you now think Rick Davis is going to be the answer to all your prayers and be the magic bullet that will turn the City around or change the way government works, I think you are setting yourself up for another major disappointment.
One thing I can say for you, at least you put some action with your words, which is more than 99% of people ever do. Now if you would only temper your activism with a little more suspicion of government solutions to government-created problems, I think you’ll have your “eureka” moment.
It wouldn’t have been any easier to convince the mayor to sell Roberts anymore than it would be to convince him to renovate it. He was going to tear it down come hell or high water. I don’t believe for a second I lost that. The fact that there were pages inserted in a sneaky fashion proves that. The final verdict will come at the next mayoral election.
Once more, renovating Roberts is really no different than leasing the Picasso painting. They both would have pulled their own weight around here.
How are you drawing a parallel between the City spending money to renovate Roberts and leasing a Picasso? I fail to see how those are analogous.
If the Picasso is leased, that’s a net income with no up front outlay of cash.
If Roberts was renovated for whatever purpose by the City, that would require an initial investment of millions on behalf of taxpayers without any guarantee of a return. That’s called risk.
Besides, they are principally different in that in the case of the Picasso, it’s owned by a non-profit organization. In the case of Roberts it was owned by the City. The City should not be conducting business and making capital investments. That’s not the role of government. That’s your major mistake in thinking.
As for your assertion the Mayor was determined to tear down Roberts, I agree. But you played into his hands by helping him and his cronies frame the debate as if the only options were Option A or Option B. If you had supported Option C and framed the debate around selling the property, which was clearly the better fiscal argument to make, the results might have been different. Guess we will never know now.
The problem with you now is this: you learned your lesson about not trusting Winnecke, but instead of that experience making you question your trust in government solutions across the board, you choose to run into the arms of Rick Davis as if he’s going to be any different. You’re failing to learn the large lesson of principle here. You’re too focused on the clock hands and are ignoring the gears and springs underneath.
In spite of working with produce all day long, the poor fellow still cannot tell the difference between apples and oranges.
@ Linzy
The Picasso most definitely would have upfront costs. There would have to be an elaborate security system no matter where it was located and I’m pretty sure that there really isn’t anywhere decent at the museum to display it separately and they already are dragging along trying to get what they have planned built.
That’s not counting the fact that the mayor has still not told the value of naming rights to anything on the facility, much less the fact that the 4 mil estimate was for every single thing that was wrong in the facility which would not all have needed to be addressed.
No, your analogy was for LEASING the Picasso, which would have involved sending it elsewhere, i.e. to Chicago or New York. That would not have involved any outlay of cash on the part of the Evansville Museum.
The only risks involving transport of the work of art could have been insured on the leasee’s dime under contract.
Even under that situation you would still be responsible for it. I’m not saying I disagree with your idea of leasing it. In fact, I think it’s what the museum should be doing. What I’m saying is, is that Roberts is the Picasso on a bigger stage.
You really have to understand mid-sized arenas to know that $4 million for a mid-sized arena is a drop in the bucket for what it can do for a city. Heck, the LST dock cost what $2-$3 million? I would say it was worth it even though the ship isn’t in the correct location.
There is already enough funds from the Aztar fund to renovate Roberts. The amount of hotel rooms it would have generated from high school basketball and college basketball preseason tournaments would have been worth it alone. That’s even before you dive into the multitude of other tenants that I mentioned who could have used the facility.
The McCurdy is a dump. When you take a dump, you flush it.
In its current state, that may well be true, but the point of porperty developments is to invest capital to refurbish or restore a structurally sound property to see a profit on the lease and/or resale.
In spite of the economic downturn, there is no question that property has value. What that value is could easily be found if put up for auction. Make it no reserve and advertise it well. Remove all restrictions for future use or historic preservation and watch what happens. If there are willing developers out there, they will show up.
This way, we don’t end up with some kind of backroom deal where the City lets the roof cave in, declares the building unsafe, then sells the property with massive restrictions for use ensuring only a handful of cronies are interested in buying the riverfront property. Then later said cronies will go before the Council and have those restrictions removed.
By saying that building is a “turd” that should be flushed, you are playing right into this game…or you are one of the players.
Well personally I think the basic brick fortress architecture of the McCurdy has all the aesthetic appeal of an overblown Monopoly game piece.
In that case, I hope no one decides to demolish it based on your personal architectural aesthetics. I think the hotel is far more attractive than most of the other modern structures on the riverfront today, including the Vectren and ONB buildings.
Have you seen photos of the McCurdy in its heyday? The interior photos are particularly impressive.
Rest easy that my opinion of the architecture carries absolutely no weight with anyone who has influence over the McCurdy fate.
If you feel so strongly about what the McCurdy used to be, what it represents today, and its value with regard to architecture and investment property, then you should put together a group of private investors and restore it to its former glory.
Nah. I’m not a property developer. I do like the building, but I have enough sense to let professional developers decide what is best for it. Where I have no faith is in government’s ability to make that decision, hence the reason I keep harping on about the need for an auction.
Again, I thought the McCurdy already belongs to private investors, Xity Centre Properties LLC of Carmel, Indiana, who owes back taxes. Why do you and others keep insinuating the government should sell it?
As far as an auction, your wish may come true when it lands on the tax sale docket. Until then, I guess it’s just more shoulda woulda coulda, yadda, yadda, yadda from all you armchair civic advisors.
That was not my understanding of its current status, but if you’re right, then I stand corrected.
Wonder how Dennis Au, Stewart Sebree and the Director of DMD feel about McCurdy after seeing these pictures?
The fundamental difference in the Picasso and Roberts Stadium is that outside investors will most certainly want the Picasso.
If the Picasso is an important work, it should be maintained and displayed in Evansville’s museum as a tourist draw in association with the promotion of the Haynie’s Corner Arts District. I’ll leave the promotional details to the Arts District experts.
This is the kind of rot that happens when government sticks its nose into private business. Thanks Weinzapfel!
RevWright, Don’t forget to thank the idiotic ERC that created both McCurdy and Executive Inn disasters.
The decay of this graceful historic treasure is a community tragedy. The City cares so little, they have not even closed some of the west facing windows.
At least the tag artist some talent. Maybe the Evansville Museum can commission them to do a collection when the Picasso is sold and that opportunity is thrown away.
You know, I feel so much like an armchair quarterback sometimes, but some of the decisions made by City officials and the lack of any real trust in the free market principles that built grand structures like the McCurdy in the first place are just lamentable.
It’s doubly difficult to watch when you speed up the reel of time and look at the “revitalization” efforts of the 60’s and how they just tore down all those beautiful historic structures to build ugly, bland, concrete behemoths and parking lots that would bisect Main Street, only then to fast forward 40 years and see politicians now deciding they want to “revitalize” downtown and make it more like it used to be.
Pick up one of those Evansville coffee table books with all the pictures before the “revitalization” of the 60s and tell me government isn’t directly responsible for the utter DESTRUCTION of this town’s character and history…and they did it for the same reasons they’re still doing it today – so they can be big shots and spend other people’s money.
With all that graffiti and a broken lantern , broken window I sure hope they don’t decide to blow it up
The real question could be what are “they” planning for this future plot of land? Whose back will be scratched for the lenghty demolition by neglect plan? The Prime real estate property could be an ideal location for some company headquarters (think Riverside One-now Vectren and/or ONB. Maybe it is a future natatorium or aquarium? Although I don’t see the “powers that be” with any foresight. Their foresight might envision a state of the art wagon wheel manufacturer or even a new pony express hub.
I’m actually with you here… Who benefits from painting the McCurdy as an old, rundown, busted up wreck that is beyond repair? Answer: the very people who’d rather see it condemned and spend money tearing it down. Give it another 2 or 3 years and that will be the “solution” that’s put forward.
There needs to be a third option in the polling question. That option should be the same is it was with Robert’s Stadium – SELL IT. Auction the building off. Get government out of it and let someone have a shot at developing it without interference.
Is it just me, or is this deja vu?
The City paid $600,000 for a small parking lot next door. They would have to give the McCurdy away for $1 for anyone to take over the huge rehab project.
with the $600,000 little parking lot thrown in.
You’re just speculating. You have no idea what that property could bring until the day of an auction.
You know, people do still develop properties privately. Not everyone needs a spender of last resort. At any rate, selling it at open auction with no strings is certainly preferable to having yet another government-run debacle on our hands.
Of course there are those who would insist the deal came with strings attached, like our friend Jordan Baer, restricting use and requiring this or that, but I’m a rare breed…I actually believe the free market will make the best use of resources in the pursuit of a profit.
We failed to do it with Roberts Stadium. Now, not only is the Stadium slated for demo, but any prospect of that property generating revenue again will be lost on the alter of government spending. We have a choice. I suggest we try something different with the McCurdy.
Honestly, I wouldn’t have a problem with it being sold as long whoever bought it was going to reuse it.
But at the same time, I don’t see why we couldn’t lease it just like you are proposing to do with the Picasso painting. The overhead was already down pretty low on the facility these past few years and that’s not even counting the fact that the water pumps would be gone. It would easily be solvent with tenants that can’t afford the Ford Center.
If the city put SMG or Venuworks in charge and got out of the way, the facility would have done fine without stepping on the toes of any other facility.
I thought it already belongs to a private entity who owes back taxes. But then maybe you have an idea what it should be, and when Rick Davis is mayor, he’ll appoint you to a blue ribbon committee to come up with a Save the McCurdy committee.
You do realize that I was talking about Roberts and not the McCurdy correct? You think we should put SMG or Venuworks in charge of the McCurdy?
And as for the “blue ribbon committee” I doubt Rick would have wasted all of our time assembling a committee whose outcome was already decided. I’ll leave things like that up to your side, assuming there’s any left in office after the next round of elections.
The subject is the McCurdy. Your wandering off subject is typical though.
You have no idea of three things: What Rick Davis would do as mayor, what “side” I happen to be on, and whether I even care who is left after the next round of elections.
I’m pretty sure Mr. Linzy was discussing Roberts Stadium and I was too. Everyone but you. Yea, you’re right I have no idea what side you’re on. You’re probably a Rick Davis fan aren’t you?
I’m pretty sure Rick wouldn’t have torn down Roberts. Stranger things have happened but there were better odds of Lloyd giving that committee a fair chance than Rick tearing down Roberts.
No.
No.
Yes.
You don’t know, and
You don’t know.
Keep those blinders on, man.
You’re batting 200.
Oops. Insert another “No” after that single “Yes.”
Now you’re batting 167.
What? That’s the best you can come up with to respond?
I was talking mainly about the McCurdy and using the Roberts debacle to buttress my argument that the McCurdy should be sold.
I am sad to see that you gentlemen (or ladies if the shoe fits) cannot see the forest for the trees here. You’d rather bicker about political parties than seek common ground or common sense solutions together.
Jordan, you cannot deny that trusting in government agents has not been particularly successful in meeting your goals of saving historic structures. By my calculation so far you are 0 for 1. (We don’t know if they are going to follow through yet on either the Gresham House or the Cemeteries commitments.)
It was, as I pointed out above, government that tore down most of the historic downtown buildings in the 1960s to make parking lots of all things. It was government that decided to tear down Roberts Stadium, despite the fact that we all know their reasons are complete BS.
They could have instantly saved taxpayers $10 million by selling at auction. This might have generated revenue on the sale that might have totaled in the millions, or could have been as little as a $1. Either way, we all would have found ourselves instantly ahead from an account ledger standpoint of ANY of the other ideas put forward by Option A or Option B people.
Furthermore, a private entity might have created something worthwhile approaching the building with an entrepreneurial mindset. Someone might have created jobs and revenue on that site with the existing building. Now, it’s also true they might have seen more value in the property by tearing it down and building something else there. That is the nature of capitalism. Private property means private property. But we already know what government decided to do – spend more money.
If you had backed Option C when I suggested it, who knows, we might be looking out across the parking lot at Roberts right now at a budding private gym with olympic swimming pool and tennis courts or a health center. Who knows? The point is I don’t know, you don’t know, the Mayor doesn’t know. We don’t have the capital to put forward for developing a property like that, so what entitles us to speculate on what it should be over someone who is risking his/her own ass financially? Surely they would have every incentive on earth to make the property into something that would see a return and be productive. The Mayor has no such incentive. The Council has no such incentive. And frankly neither do you or I.
If you now think Rick Davis is going to be the answer to all your prayers and be the magic bullet that will turn the City around or change the way government works, I think you are setting yourself up for another major disappointment.
One thing I can say for you, at least you put some action with your words, which is more than 99% of people ever do. Now if you would only temper your activism with a little more suspicion of government solutions to government-created problems, I think you’ll have your “eureka” moment.
It wouldn’t have been any easier to convince the mayor to sell Roberts anymore than it would be to convince him to renovate it. He was going to tear it down come hell or high water. I don’t believe for a second I lost that. The fact that there were pages inserted in a sneaky fashion proves that. The final verdict will come at the next mayoral election.
Once more, renovating Roberts is really no different than leasing the Picasso painting. They both would have pulled their own weight around here.
How are you drawing a parallel between the City spending money to renovate Roberts and leasing a Picasso? I fail to see how those are analogous.
If the Picasso is leased, that’s a net income with no up front outlay of cash.
If Roberts was renovated for whatever purpose by the City, that would require an initial investment of millions on behalf of taxpayers without any guarantee of a return. That’s called risk.
Besides, they are principally different in that in the case of the Picasso, it’s owned by a non-profit organization. In the case of Roberts it was owned by the City. The City should not be conducting business and making capital investments. That’s not the role of government. That’s your major mistake in thinking.
As for your assertion the Mayor was determined to tear down Roberts, I agree. But you played into his hands by helping him and his cronies frame the debate as if the only options were Option A or Option B. If you had supported Option C and framed the debate around selling the property, which was clearly the better fiscal argument to make, the results might have been different. Guess we will never know now.
The problem with you now is this: you learned your lesson about not trusting Winnecke, but instead of that experience making you question your trust in government solutions across the board, you choose to run into the arms of Rick Davis as if he’s going to be any different. You’re failing to learn the large lesson of principle here. You’re too focused on the clock hands and are ignoring the gears and springs underneath.
In spite of working with produce all day long, the poor fellow still cannot tell the difference between apples and oranges.
@ Linzy
The Picasso most definitely would have upfront costs. There would have to be an elaborate security system no matter where it was located and I’m pretty sure that there really isn’t anywhere decent at the museum to display it separately and they already are dragging along trying to get what they have planned built.
That’s not counting the fact that the mayor has still not told the value of naming rights to anything on the facility, much less the fact that the 4 mil estimate was for every single thing that was wrong in the facility which would not all have needed to be addressed.
No, your analogy was for LEASING the Picasso, which would have involved sending it elsewhere, i.e. to Chicago or New York. That would not have involved any outlay of cash on the part of the Evansville Museum.
The only risks involving transport of the work of art could have been insured on the leasee’s dime under contract.
Even under that situation you would still be responsible for it. I’m not saying I disagree with your idea of leasing it. In fact, I think it’s what the museum should be doing. What I’m saying is, is that Roberts is the Picasso on a bigger stage.
You really have to understand mid-sized arenas to know that $4 million for a mid-sized arena is a drop in the bucket for what it can do for a city. Heck, the LST dock cost what $2-$3 million? I would say it was worth it even though the ship isn’t in the correct location.
There is already enough funds from the Aztar fund to renovate Roberts. The amount of hotel rooms it would have generated from high school basketball and college basketball preseason tournaments would have been worth it alone. That’s even before you dive into the multitude of other tenants that I mentioned who could have used the facility.
The McCurdy is a dump. When you take a dump, you flush it.
In its current state, that may well be true, but the point of porperty developments is to invest capital to refurbish or restore a structurally sound property to see a profit on the lease and/or resale.
In spite of the economic downturn, there is no question that property has value. What that value is could easily be found if put up for auction. Make it no reserve and advertise it well. Remove all restrictions for future use or historic preservation and watch what happens. If there are willing developers out there, they will show up.
This way, we don’t end up with some kind of backroom deal where the City lets the roof cave in, declares the building unsafe, then sells the property with massive restrictions for use ensuring only a handful of cronies are interested in buying the riverfront property. Then later said cronies will go before the Council and have those restrictions removed.
By saying that building is a “turd” that should be flushed, you are playing right into this game…or you are one of the players.
Well personally I think the basic brick fortress architecture of the McCurdy has all the aesthetic appeal of an overblown Monopoly game piece.
In that case, I hope no one decides to demolish it based on your personal architectural aesthetics. I think the hotel is far more attractive than most of the other modern structures on the riverfront today, including the Vectren and ONB buildings.
Have you seen photos of the McCurdy in its heyday? The interior photos are particularly impressive.
Rest easy that my opinion of the architecture carries absolutely no weight with anyone who has influence over the McCurdy fate.
If you feel so strongly about what the McCurdy used to be, what it represents today, and its value with regard to architecture and investment property, then you should put together a group of private investors and restore it to its former glory.
Nah. I’m not a property developer. I do like the building, but I have enough sense to let professional developers decide what is best for it. Where I have no faith is in government’s ability to make that decision, hence the reason I keep harping on about the need for an auction.
Again, I thought the McCurdy already belongs to private investors, Xity Centre Properties LLC of Carmel, Indiana, who owes back taxes. Why do you and others keep insinuating the government should sell it?
As far as an auction, your wish may come true when it lands on the tax sale docket. Until then, I guess it’s just more shoulda woulda coulda, yadda, yadda, yadda from all you armchair civic advisors.
That was not my understanding of its current status, but if you’re right, then I stand corrected.
Wonder how Dennis Au, Stewart Sebree and the Director of DMD feel about McCurdy after seeing these pictures?
The fundamental difference in the Picasso and Roberts Stadium is that outside investors will most certainly want the Picasso.
If the Picasso is an important work, it should be maintained and displayed in Evansville’s museum as a tourist draw in association with the promotion of the Haynie’s Corner Arts District. I’ll leave the promotional details to the Arts District experts.
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