Back Talk Far North Dallas

Easing credit crunch puts the convention center hotel back on track

Good news for fans of the taxpayer-owned downtown convention center hotel, as well as for the pending DISD bond issue: The credit market, at least for public works projects, appears to be easing enough to allow AA-rated and above public entities to obtain financing. A DMN story indicates the city of Dallas intends to close on $253.3 million in water improvement project bonds this week; a few weeks ago, this and just about every other bond project in the country were frozen due to lack of capital or political will or lenders — take your pick. The $550 million convention center hotel, which Mayor Tom Leppert and many city councilmen have vowed to fund in January, requires issuance of municipal revenue bonds to generate the cash, so now that the market is coming back, lack of available funding shouldn't hold back Leppert or the council. I guess we'll see if the May referendum on the project causes the council members any heartburn when it comes time to approve the bonds in January.

Trinity Corridor: The latest news about the project

For those of you interested in a Trinity River fix, check out the Trinity River Corridor Project's latest newsletter, which has a lot of information about what's happening with the big project. Although most of the update has to do with the Audubon Center's opening Oct. 18-19, there's an update about form-based zoning (which impacts building everywhere in the city), along with a list of public meetings about various aspects of the project. It's worth signing up for the periodic enewsletter, too, if you don't want to wait for Back Talk to bring you up do date.

Trinity toll road update

The big news is the last four of paragraphs in the story, courtesy of Dallas’ Only Daily Newspaper:

The price of the road, though still uncertain, appears to keep getting higher. Meanwhile, NTTA’s ability to fund projects like the Trinity is getting smaller.

Last April, Mr. Figueredo said NTTA’s current revenues would support some $3.5 billion or so in additional financing for new projects. A month ago, he said, that number had sunk below $3 billion as the credit market tightened.

In addition, he said, revenues for the toll roads already open are falling, thanks to a nationwide trend of Americans — in a historic shift — choosing to drive less.

“So with everything else going on, our revenues are flat,” Mr. Figueredo said. “Now, our experts say that’s just temporary and they will come back. But we don’t really know if that is the case.”

In the old days, we called it burying the lede; that is, putting the most important stuff at the end of the story. And yes, there is some interesting information in the first couple of dozen paragraphs. The Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Highway Administation may not be able to approve the project to make Mayor Park Cities' "Dallas is a vision and you must support it" goal of building the road by 2013.

Which is all made irrelevant by the last four paragraphs. There may not be enough money to build it, not only because of the credit crunch, but because the road is designed to be self-financing. If not enough people use it, it won't pay for itself. And Americans, thanks to high gas prices, are driving less.

Could someone explain to me, again, why we're building this thing?

Technorati Tags: Trinity toll road,Dallas,Tom Leppert

Convention center petition drive led by courteous, knowledgeable carpetbaggers

How's the petition drive to bring the convention center hotel to a vote going? Well, I was filling up at a 7-Eleven Sunday when I was approached by someone holding a petition supporting the proposed referendum on the hotel. While signing, I noticed I was number 18 on the page of 20 possible signatures, and the guy soliciting the names picked up two more signatures on different petition sheets just while I was filling up and signing.

I asked the guy if he was a volunteer or being paid; he politely said he was being paid. I asked if there were a lot of people like him in Dallas right now: "Oh, man," he said. "A lot." He then threw out a few details about the hotel project, and everything he said was correct and delivered in a courteous, non-pushy manner. In fact, he approached one woman with a petition, she told him "no thanks", and he told her "thanks" and just kept moving. The guy told me this is what he does professionally, going from city to city soliciting signatures for various referendums: "We were just in Reno, Nevada, getting signatures for a school issue," he said.

It's too bad politics in Dallas has come to this: We can't depend on the people we elect to let us have a say in the big, expensive projects of the day. Instead, we have to depend on someone with a bunch of money to hire people from out of town to give voters a chance to have our say.

Convention center hotel update: Even the 'Dallas Morning News' has its doubts

A negative word from an unexpected source: The Dallas Morning News editorialized that maybe having a referendum on the taxpayer-owned convention center hotel is a good idea, after all. Here's part of what was written: "The question is not whether the city needs a convention center hotel. It does. But many taxpayers rightly wonder if they're writing a blank check. The council's abrupt shift in plans from a public-private venture to a city-owned project came behind closed doors. City leaders scheduled a vote in record time, barely pausing to explain the details of the deal. Now several council members seem to be rolling their eyes and saying: Do we need to have a referendum on everything? Well, no. But when hundreds of millions of public dollars are in play, it's not a bad idea."

No to Chavez instead of Ross; Industrial might be next

The city plan commission voted 7-6 Thursday to deny an application to change the name of Ross Avenue to Cesar Chavez; the plan commission's "no" vote means that if the measure goes before the city council, it will take 11 votes to overturn the plan commission's decision and rename Ross. According to the DMN story, Oct. 22 looms as decision day — at least at this point — potentially for both Ross and Industrial at city council. That's when the full council could consider a request to rename Industrial as Riverfront and/or consider renaming Industrial for Chavez.

Convention center hotel: The 'Vote No' PR campaign begins

The public campaign against the taxpayer-owned downtown convention center hotel has begun: At the end of this post is a copy of the promotional flyer I received in my mailbox today. (Click here to download convention_center_9.21.pdf)

Under the headline "Did You Approve This?" — knowing full well that we didn't — the piece shows a check from "Every Dallas Taxpayer" to the City of Dallas for $400 million, actually listing what I think is a lowball estimate of the taxpayer's share of the project. The 11-by-17-inch color flyer includes a list of "risks" purportedly associated with building a taxpayer-owned hotel ("higher taxes, cuts in public services, spiraling costs, bigger deficits"), complaints about no public input and then the debatable "no public benefit" along with a tear-off return postcard (you have to supply your own postage) saying the NoTaxpayerHotel.com people can count on you.

City acquires Trinity acreage; Audubon Center opens Oct. 18

Some good news from the Trinity River project: The city has acquired 1,400 acres of forest land near I-45 and Loop 12 south of downtown, according to the Dallas Business Journal. A portion of the site will be used for a projected $30 million Texas Horse Park, scheduled to begin construction late next year, assuming that $15 million in private funding can be raised. The remaining acreage will be utilized by the $14 million Trinity River Audubon Center, set to open a 21,000-square-foot learning center in mid-October. The funding for both projects was approved in the original Trinity improvement vote in 1998, which funded acquisition of about 2,700 acres of land in the Trinity corridor; this acquisition means the city has acquired more than 2,000 acres, the DBJ reports.

A coup downtown puts Chavez back on the road to Industrial

Yesterday's news from the city plan commission on the Ross-Industrial-Chavez imbroglio could very well be a political master-stroke that will set the tone for the next couple of years downtown.

With the entire plan commission voting not to rename Industrial to Riverfront — and with a plan commision subcommittee voting against renaming Ross, too — we're seeing a renegade group of volunteer citizens taking action to produce a new vision for Dallas rather than rely on the politically expedient route that seems to have been holding sway downtown lately.

Chavez to Ross to Industrial: Now what's going on?

Here's a twist on the seemingly endless Cesar Chavez street-renaming story: According to the DMN, the entire city plan commission voted yesterday to recommend that the city council NOT change Industrial Boulevard's name to Riverfront, while a subcommittee of the plan commission also voted against a plan to change Ross Avenue to Chavez.

With me so far?

Although I don't know the inside story on this deal, it sounds like a little political dice-rolling and backroom payback is going on here.