One of my favorite dining places may be shoved out by high rents

[ellen_datlow]

Just got this alert from a friend:
Florent and greedy landlords

I'm really depressed about this. It's the last bastion of reasonable prices and a fun, relaxed atmosphere in a neighborhood that has been drowned by greed and real estate lust. This absolutely sucks if it's true.

Comments

[shvetufae.livejournal.com]

That really does seem to be the fate everywhere. . .and I am really tired of everything unique going, only to be replaced by a Walgreen's or a Bank of America.

[sclerotic-rings.livejournal.com]

We don't even get that: oh, Dallas gets a lot of the unique little places replaced with BofA or CVS Pharmacy spots, true, but the real aggravation comes from when the developers tear down the original, put up a sign reading "COMING SOON," and then run like hell with the money. Literally up the street from me, one of the only decent repair garages in the area was sold and torn down almost a year ago, and all we have to show for it is a big mudhole with a sign promising an upcoming branch of a bank that was bought by Wachovia just after the demolition. The only good that came from the whole schmeal was that I was able to salvage some of the cinder blocks from the wreckage for my greenhouse, but that's not enough.

What really worries me is that I saw the same exact thing happen in this area during the oil bust of 1986, when all of the development speculation dependent upon the high price of West Texas Intermediate fell through when the price of oil dropped through the floor. The relatively minor concerns came from developers with plans for shopping malls and high-rise apartments who saw the reality that they were never going to see a profit and grabbed the money to finance their early retirements in Rio. (This literally happened with a shopping mall in my old home town north of here, and the mall was finally built when the city offered to cover most of the absconded $20 million for another developer to finish the job.) The scary ones are the projects that become major health and safety threats when they're abandoned; Back in the Eighties, one of these developers started work on excavating a gigantic foundation pit for an intended hotel/apartment highrise/supergym near downtown Dallas and buggered out when the oil market crashed: the hole abutted two major roads, so its erosion was a literal threat to drivers trying to get to work or home. The hole had been inadequately shored up in the first place, so the city had to take responsibility for reshoring it, as well as running sump pumps and spraying for mosquitoes in our newest city lake, and the hole was finally dealt with nearly fifteen years later. After nearly 20 years of seeing half-finished industrial parks, residential subdivisions, and strip malls slowly being completed or demolished, I'm wondering what similar nightmares are going to spring up when the current round of greedheads decide that they don't want their toys any more.