Beale St Landing Funding Voted Down

Beale St Landing (BSL) failed today, Tuesday, May 11th. After a previous postponement, the City Council budget committee voted against more money for BSL. $10.5 million had been requested plus $1M found in the Housing and Community Development budget.

During questioning by Councilman Shea Flinn, Councilmembers learned that completing the project would require that $11.5M plus at least $6.6M for landscaping with no completion date in sight.

The Committee also learned that as far back as Feb. 2009, BSL was in trouble financially and that neither the City Council nor Interim Mayor Lowery was informed.

Click HERE to hear RDC President Lendermon's statement.

Three months later, in May 2009, the Council was not told the bad news, and, in Aug. 2009, the RDC signed a construction contract committing the City to spend $9.6 million to build a boat dock. At that time, the overnight boats for which the dock was designed had been out of business almost a year.

The budget will go to the full City Council in the near future.

Click
HERE for Commercial Appeal coverage by Amos Maki
HERE for transcript of ABC/24 coverage by Jeni DiPrizio.
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