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2006/11/28

Hole in the bottom of Destiny's basket

Dick Case reminds us today that Destiny isn't off the radar. And by Destiny, he means a mall expansion. The key hasn't even been taken out of the pocket yet on the Destiny project.

Here's the big hit:
Know this: Another deadline approaches for the Pyramid partners, and it's a big one. Some of that steel stacked along Hiawatha Boulevard has to be dusted off by the end of the year or the city folds its tax agreement.
Sure, the city could still grant an extension (and probably would, if it was asked). But another question is, what exactly is required for the tax agreement to take effect? The agreement says essentially that Pyramid has to begin work on the mall expansion by the end of the year. Does that mean they can dig a hole and stick a beam in there and then let it sit for six months – or forever? It might.

It seems like there are no more legal hurdles to getting the expansion going, even if some of the mall tenants do decide to take their case to the Supreme Court. Hell, the folks at Pyramid even settled an outstanding lawsuit by paying some former business partners $100 million and admitting no wrongdoing.

Yeah, we didn't do anything wrong, but here's $100 million just in case we did. That should smooth everything over.

With the Canal Corp. maybe finally offering someone else the opportunity to buy the Inner Harbor and a whole lot of other development going on in the city, I think Case drives it all right to the point:
Over the last few months, the community seems to have moved the eggs from one basket to many. We're going ahead on smaller bits of private enterprise without ties to Destiny. History tells us this is the best course for our town.
Best course, indeed. It's never a good idea to put all your eggs in one basket – it's even worse when you know the basket has a hole in the bottom.
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