The News Journal has been putting an emphasis on investigative journalism and “story telling” since it launched a subscription model or “paywall, ” along with a major marketing and advertising effort carrying that message.
We saw the fruits of that strategy on Sunday with a lengthy expose of riverfront and downtown development and the Buccini/Pollin Group, the driving force behind development in the city of Wilmington. See LINK.
Community booster types will see it as yet another negative story from a paper with few roots in the community. Social service activists and libertarians will see it as confirmation of government spending running gone will or a subsidy for the “one percent” elite.
To no one’s surprise, we learned that redevelopment of the area is a messy process with heavy involvement by the state and local government.
We also learned of disagreements within the administration of Gov. Jack Markell and various tax incentives. Actually, most of those arrangements have been public knowledge. There were also negotiations that took place out of the public eye and a general tone of unease about such goings on, perhaps a hint of disappointment at not being invited to the party.
And the overall message from the story?
It’s muddled, like the development process itself.
Those who us who followed the development process over the past couple of decades remember what at the time seemed like a crazy effort to build a minor league baseball stadium at the site of a former shipbuilding complex.
That evolved into a massive amount of investment, a new exhibit-meeting center, condos, apartments, supermarket offices complex. There is also an urban wildlife refuge, a powerful reminder of another driving force behind the riverfront development, the late former governor and environmental champion Russell Peterson.
In short, Wilmington has a new city along the Christina and hopeful signs that the lower portion of downtown is coming along.
All along, the process has been controversial, thanks in large part to the state’s involvement as the lead in the Riverfront Development Corp. and an ill-advised plan by the city to use the power of eminent domain.
The argument could be made that government should not be involved in such matters and should simply divert funds to social service projects. Critics often pointed to a less-than-successful effort to build a retail center in the area by the other major player on the riverfront, Pettinaro. That complex has since been converted to a complex of office suites that seems to be doing well.
The overriding question that remains is where Wilmington would be if the redevelopment effort had not been launched? Would the city had gone into a steep decline that is far worse than the current situation?
Those are questions the series could not answer in its lengthy exploration. – Doug Rainey
