FBN: City Council Debate Lets "Cat Out Of The Bag" Regarding Half Empty Strip Centers (New and Old)--click here for more--

“...One of the problems when we look at this, if you drive around and look at some of these shopping centers, they are almost totally empty and all that is in there is a daycare center,” said Councilman Jerry Wyatt. “And you wonder why no one else is going in there.”

Elackatt said there were two brand-new centers on Hwy. 6 that are virtually empty, and neither has a daycare center.
“I am just not understanding how it’s going to affect business,” said Elackatt.

“It already has, Robin,” said Wyatt.

“That’s what I am saying, Jerry,” said Elackatt. “There’s two of them on Hwy. 6 that don’t have daycare and still can’t get business.”
“Those are spec buildings,” said Wyatt. “They didn’t build them to instantly fill them up, they are going to fill up as they go. That is why they are called spec buildings.”

“So, you have a 10,000 square feet just sitting there, a vendor comes along and they want to lease out 5,000 of that for daycare and we are going to tell them, no, you can’t,” said Elackatt..."

MCC comment: Mr. Elackatt was the last reform council member elected to city council in 2009 but has proven to be a disappointment as of late usually voting lock step (until this session) with the rest of the mayor's rubber stamp council. It is too bad he didn't make a stand like this during the tax votes when former council member Gary voted to oppose.