Pointe Blue is dead. We predicted as much several times over the last few months, but the official word came Friday. (Note to a certain tipster who said word would come by Jan. 10 ... you were off by a day.)Our big question following the news was simple: What happened? We called Brian O'Connell, director of development for the city, and got the answer. It's not real exciting.
The bottom fell out of the residential real estate market in the past year and no one is willing to loan money for condos people may not buy, O'Connell said. You know the sub-prime mortgage crisis that's in the news on a daily basis? That's the assassin of Pointe Blue.
"The project was viable two years ago, or so," he said. "Unfortunately, some pieces of it took time getting together and the financial market turned."
The same story is being told around the country, like here, here, here, here, here, here, here ... and those are all just in the past month.
The reason Pointe Blue failed now is because the developer needed another extension from the city to retain his rights to the lakefront property. He'd already been given several extensions, and this time the city concluded the project wasn't going to happen, O'Connell said.
"Keeping this particular agreement going didn't make sense," he said.
So what's next?
No one is really sure, O'Connell said.
The good news is Racine still has a prime piece of real estate along its lake front that someone is going to develop. When, who, how, what ... are all at the mercy of the financial markets.
O'Connell, the mayor and other city officials will meet with financial advisers to consider next steps. Scott Fergus, the developer behind Pointe Blue, wants another shot at developing the lake front portion of the property. But O'Connell said it was too early to comment on that idea.
Another option is to bank the land and wait for the economy to turn around. Then again, that may be the only option at this point.
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