Where’s the West End Going?

Been hearing rumors in my West End neighborhood for the past couple of weeks that things had gone sideways on a couple of big 1st Avenue rehab projects. Now I see that a legal notice on the Music City Building confirms that there’s some sort of tiff amongst the folks who are developing the Railside Center, the New Madison and the Otis Hotel. A Notice of Default directed at Steve Elliott, managing member of Spokane Partners, LLC, alleges that the company owes almost $504,000 to RenCorp. Not sure of the details but it’s never good when business partners hire attorneys and begin posting public notices.

I noticed that something was amiss about a month ago when it became apparent that work had stopped on the New Madison apartment building project. Too bad really as RenCorp is one of the good guys. The company has done several great historical redevelopment projects in the downtown area and is working hard to ensure that low income and work force housing is part of their portfolio. I just hate to see anything that slows down the momentum we’ve seen in the West End over the past year or so.

But the real interesting thing will be to see how this dustup between partners plays out publically. Best advice is generally for companies to come clean and let folks know what’s going on before the rumors really start to fly. I’m sure that lawyers for both sides have advised their clients to keep quiet---don’t they always? But here’s the thing: people are already talking, control of the messaging is slipping away and most of this will be in the public record anyway. So why not let us know what’s happening?