You have to hand it to Skip Alston. The former Guilford County Commission chairman might be the only politician in Greensboro with who could stand up and tell the Greensboro City Council that his winning proposal to rehab the rundown Bessemer Shopping Center is the answer to East Greensboro’s prayers right after supporters for a proposed co-op grocery store repeatedly told the council what a raw deal it was.
The council voted 5-4 to start the process of selling the shopping center to a development group represented by Alston, which in turn means he will collect a $150k broker’s fee. The council didn’t buy a proposal led by former council member Goldie Wells that would establish the co-op in the shopping center with help in the form of $700k in grants and loans from the city, which would also retain ownership of the shopping center. The swing vote was council member and former Mayor Yvonne Johnson, who bought into Alston’s promise to give the co-op a chance in the rehabbed shopping center at sweetheart rate of $1.50 per square foot.
Council member Zack Matheny said the city is a “terrible landlord.” I couldn’t agree more, and I’m glad the council rid taxpayers of this burden. Still, the city is granting Alston’s development group a $2 million loan (help me out here –I heard “forgivable” in council member Jim Kee’s motion) and there are still many questions about the supposed nonprofit group that will be formed to reap in 40 percent of the shopping center’s profits. No one’s sure how that’s going to play out.
Amazing that the council spent another four hours on this issue after spending four hours on the issue during a previous meeting. A couple of weeks ago former Guilford County economic developer Rob Bencini penned an N&R op-ed stating that cities need to “stop getting mired up in every puny distraction and addressing them with knee-jerk reactions (i.e. food truck rules, tree limb trimming, downtown “good repair ordinance” and speakers from the floor).” Add this issue to the list.
