Growth and Change

It’s almost as though the Mall knew I was talking about it.

My apologies to those of you well-informed people out there in HoCoLand who already knew this. I just learned this morning that General Growth Properties is no more, having been acquired by Brookfield Property Partners. You can read more in this article in the Business Monthly. Speaking of well-known businesses changing hands, the Business Monthly also took on new owner and publisher Daniel Medinger this year.

Both of these things make me think about the late HoCo blogger and man about town (citizen laureate?) Dennis Lane. Not only would Dennis have known about the possibility of this acquisition long before it happened, he very likely would have been writing a column about it in the Business Monthly. Oh, how I miss the depth of his background knowledge and the wit and wisdom of his commentary on commercial real estate.

Giving credit where it is due, I note that the possibility of this transaction was discussed in the Celebrating Columbia Facebook Group as early at December, 2017 when the Wall Street Journal covered the news that an initial offer was made. Certainly some top notch Columbia-watchers there. I don’t remember that original discussion at all, so I clearly wasn’t paying attention. Hmm.

Doesn’t somebody out there want to write the fun, interesting, informative, and accurate HoCo commercial real estate blog? Since most people feel that the era of blogs is already over, I’m not optimistic that anyone will answer this call. And somehow I don’t feel this is a topic that can be successfully covered by an Instagram account.

Dennis wrote for the love of it. As far as I know, he wasn’t driven by a desire to monetize the blog as a source of personal income. Most people who have the expertise and connections necessary to write about local commercial real estate today would probably need it to help pay the bills in some way. The gig economy has made the creation of second or third jobs or what is known as “a side hustle” a necessity, not a hobby.

In the meantime, maybe I’d better subscribe to The Business Monthly.

Comments

Teacher Gifts

Today is the last day of school before the Winter Break. It’s a good time to remember the far-reaching nature of our public school system. You may not have children. You may have sent your children to independent schools. It matters not. You will be impacted one way or another. Yesterday I read a long thread on Facebook about several waves of illness in the schools right now. There’s influenza A and norovirus, I believe. And of course there’s COVID. Apparently in some individual schools the rate of illness is high enough for school admin to notify parents. When I was little the acceptable holiday gift for a teacher was one of those lovely floral handkerchief squares. (I don’t know what it was for male teachers. They were rare in my elementary years.) These days the range of teacher gifts is wider and I have fond memories of Target gift cards which I have written about before. I think it’s safe to say that giving one’s teacher Influenza, norovirus, or COVID is not the ideal holiday...

They Can Wait

This is not a typical Saturday post. That’s because, in my community, it’s not a typical Saturday. Oakland Mills High School, after years of deferred repair, needs massive renovation. It’s pretty simple: when you don’t fix a problem it gets bigger. The school system itself said the the OMHS school building was "no longer conducive to learning" back in 2018. 2018 . But Thursday the Boad of Education voted to push it out of the lineup of important projects which will be given the go-ahead to proceed soonest. In my opinion it’s a terrible decision and sets a dangerous precedent. To explain, here’s the advocacy letter I sent in support of Oakland Mills High School. I was rather proud of it. I am writing to ask you to proceed with needed renovation at Oakland Mills High School in the most timely and comprehensive manner humanly possible. I have read the letter sent to you by the Oakland Mills Community Association and I am in complete agreement. You are extremel...

Separate and Unequal

Remember “Separate but equal”? Remember how that really meant that Black schools languished in broken-down buildings without adequate heat or toilet facilities, with cast-off, ragged learning materials, underfunded and largely ignored? The Supreme Court struck that down in 1954. The evidence was clear that separate was not equal. Plessy v Ferguson had led to - - no, endorsed - - deeply unequal schooling and opportunities. We tend to think of Brown v Board as being purely about racial integration. It was not. It was about the logical consequences of segregation. And they were not, not, not equal. The ruling in 1954 didn’t transform public education for non-whites into a land of milk and honey by any means. But it articulated some essential truths in a way that made including everyone a legal precedent which could be relied upon and built upon. It was better than what came before it but it rested upon unsteady ground. It did not necessarily change the hearts or minds ...

Village Green/Town²

Search This Blog