What you may not know about the Midtown deal

Most everyone seems ecstatic about the idea of Midtown Mall coming down to make room for the world headquarters of Paetec Communications. That happiness may be well placed, but some aspects of the project bother me.

First of all, the city isn't going to the owners of the property and negotiating a purchase. Instead, they're condemning the buildings and offering fair-market value. I don't like this approach; I don't see it as the government's role to snatch a property and decide what to do with it. If Paetec wants to build their headquarters downtown, why don't they go to the owners of the property and make an offer? The answer to that brings me to my next point.

This project is being completed on your dime. At least $50 million in state money will be spent tearing it down, and an untold sum will be paid by the city to purchase the 9-acre site. This will also certainly be in the tens of millions of taxpayer dollars. So, Paetec will get a nice shovel-ready site at your expense.

My final problem with this whole thing kind of summarizes the first two. I don't like the government taking the lead in these economic development initiatives. It seems to rarely end well, and it's almost always a band aid for a host of other bad government policies, namely high taxes. We don't need to have long memories to recall such initiatives in Rochester. The millions that Bill Johnson's administration poured with blind faith into High Falls and the Fast Ferry became his sad legacy.

For all of these reasons, I think Duffy is taking a pretty big chance here. Don't get me wrong; I really hope it pays off. But even if the ends do justify the means after the final hammer swings on this thing, I'll still be just a bit squeamish about the means.