Memphis developer John Elkington is just a consultant to the WaterWalk development — a good thing, given his troubling track record in some other cities. If he were in charge, rather than just lining up the Funny Bone Comedy Club and Wet Willie’s Daiquiri Bar for the project, Wichitans might have big reason to worry. Still, two things said in Thursday’s Eagle article on Elkington’s messy history were cause for concern: WaterWalk president Tom Johnson’s comment that he doesn’t care what Elkington did in other cities, and Wichita economic development director Allen Bell’s suggestion that Elkington’s track record isn’t the city’s responsibility either. Elkington’s limited role may be no big deal. But if WaterWalk doesn’t care about its consultants’ track records and the city sees no need for due diligence on its part, who is looking out for the taxpayers who are backing this major public-private project along Wichita’s best riverfront real estate?
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10 Comments
I am moderately in favor of the Water Walk project. However, I still want to p*k* when I hear the words, “downtown arena.”
Regarding tenants for the Water Walk project, one is the Wichita Realtors building which will leave a vacant building a few blocks to the east. And two restaurants which will provide another stop for alcoholics when making their evening rounds.
Once again largely at taxpayer expense.
Corporate/business/retail tenants are needed for the project to finally bring something positive to downtown Wichita.
OK an old story: A scorpion was trapped by raising water and called to a frog to take him across the river.
The Frog said, “No you will sting me and I will die!” to which the Scorpion promised not the sting the frog.
Half way across the Scorpion suddenly stung the frog, as the two was sinking to their deaths. The Frog said, “you promised not to sting me!” and the Scorpion said “I am a Scorpion… That’s what we do!”.
Take from it what you will about this topic….
The King said, “Let him go free, but brand his forehead and have some guards follow him. If he drinks the wine that he paid for, all is well.
If he steals the wine, let him be and reimburse the keeper.
If he sells the wine and keeps the profit, kill him because he hath stolen duty that was due to his King.”
When the WaterWalk was discussed and voted on at City Council I spoke against it. I raised a number of detailed concerns and provided a written copy of my comments. ALL of those were excluded from the Official Record with only the notation that I spoke against it.
Many of my concerns have come to pass. They cannot claim they didn’t know all this would happen.
Compare the WaterWalk and the Water Front.
By the way - where is WaterWalk and Arena supporter Joe! Williams these days? Maybe he could tell us all how wonderfully this project is coming along!
The Eagle story is not completely accurate.
As I recall, NOBODY at Bass Pro was ever willing to go on record and say that they were even considering a Wichita location.
It is unfair to say that former Mayor Carlos Mayans killed that deal.
There never WAS a “deal” or even a strong suggestion, by anyone with any authority, that it would ever happen.
Paul - mark this date in your calendar: WE AGREE!
;)
Ben,
Let sleeping dogs lie! Please!
Paul:
The Eagle slant facts to elitist interests? Surely, this cannot be!
(sarcasm off)
“• Tom Dark, the chief administrative officer for the city of Shreveport, La., said Performa saddled the city with a couple of struggling restaurants and $5 million in debt before leaving town in 2003.”
I wonder how Wet Willies and Funny Bone will fare in Wichita. Do we really need government-subsidized clubs to compete with those in the private sector?
Comments by Tom Dark, Shreveport’s Chief Administrative Officer were either taken out of context, he is sadly misinformed, or he is intentionally misleading people. This can also be said of many of the other comments by City officials of John Elkington’s problems. While I will not suggest he is without fault it is amazing (maybe it shouldn’t be) that city officials avoid taking responsibility for their own actions. In Shreveport the problem was solely the result of a previous administrations gross over-reaction to crowds of certain people they considered “undesirable”. This was well documented and it is very disingenuous for Mr. Dark to blame the failure of the project on someone who did exactly what he said he would do. The failure occurred AFTER the project was a huge success.
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