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Saturday, September 01, 2007

White Elephant Non-sale --- Part 3.

Guess what? Right. Postponed again.

Another Minnwest non-event.

The unblessed mess off the foreclosure block yet again, one more time, with this story, courtesy of Pioneer Press, Nicole Garrison-Sprenger, Aug.30:


The future of the ill-fated Ramsey Town Center in Anoka County remains up in the air.

The auction scheduled for today will be called off for a third time by officials at Minnwest Corp., the bank that holds the mortgage on the land, officials said.

Russ Bushman of Minnwest cited ongoing negotiations with Ramsey city officials over the viability of completing the project according to the master development agreement created in 2003. But the bank also is considering "other options" for the land that have popped up in the past month or so. Bushman said he couldn't yet disclose the nature of those options.

Well, three strikes and you are out, in baseball. This diddling bank has its three strikes. The Ramsey government is doing the citizens a big disservice by looking to cut any deal with these inept idiots. They did not require Nedegaard to pay down the loan proportionally while granting deed releases on the past shared wall land, and Jim Deal's commercial acreage purchase - and now they want concessions for their mismanagement of the loan. And the pliant city, willing, against all reason to comply.

If the city loses its lawsuit, then it can buy the parkland, etc., and the money can come from the errors and omissions coverage of Briggs & Morgan, the negotiation specialists - hired guns - brought in to specially protect city interests. They let the mortgage get recorded in front of the Master Development Agreement, and appear to not have, after recording, taken the simple step of getting a title search to show the situation so the city could have, before much mischief, had their position preeminent by a recorded bank subordination. Briggs and Morgan did all the hemming and hawing [and billing] over word-smithing but did not check the situation at the recorder's office afterward, when even a novice, presumably, might have and the seasoned "pros" should have. So the city has that cushion to rest on, unless somehow it was signed away by someone, sometime in the past.

Wikipedia defines "White Elephant" and describes:

A white elephant is a supposedly valuable possession whose cost (particularly cost of upkeep) exceeds its usefulness, and it is therefore a liability. The term derives from the sacred white elephants kept by traditional Southeast Asian monarchs in Burma, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. To possess a white elephant was regarded (and still is regarded, in Thailand and Burma) as a sign that the monarch was ruling with justice and the kingdom was blessed with peace and prosperity. Because the animals were considered sacred, laws protected them from labor, therefore receiving a “gift” of a white elephant from a monarch was both a blessing and a curse; a blessing because of the animal’s sacred nature and a curse because the animal could be put to no practical use.

P.T. Barnum once sent an agent to buy a white elephant, sight unseen, hoping to use it as a circus attraction. When it arrived in Bridgeport, Connecticut, it was covered with large pinkish splotches and was not white at all. The public was not impressed and Barnum had to keep his "white elephant" hidden from public view in a stable while he tried to decide how to recover some of the high cost. The elephant later died when his stable burned down.

The metaphor was popularized in the United States after New York Giants manager John McGraw told the press that Philadelphia businessman Benjamin Shibe had "bought himself a white elephant" by acquiring the Philadelphia Athletics baseball team in 1901.


A lot of snotty things could be spun out from that text. Let's just say, okay, good term, "White Elephant" for the Ramsey Town Center. There's something there.

But, with P. T. Barnum, described by Wikipedia as "best remembered for his entertaining hoaxes and for founding the circus that eventually became Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus," and with the bank's three strikes and out, perhaps now is fit time to rename Town Center to Clown Center, and to consider closing the post with this animated gif that explains the nature of real estate bubbles, (and animates properly in the Firefox browser and [depending on browser settings] might also work when viewed in Internet Explorer):




Town Center is the greatest show on earth. Any questions?