Cabarrus Cheap Seats

This is an editorial from the January 11, 2004 Independent Tribune. Unfortunately, there’s no copy on-line; but I did manage to get a hard copy.

NEW JUSTICE COMPLEX SHOULD STAY DOWNTOWN  

The debate over whether to keep the Cabarrus County courthouse and jail in the downtown seems to be a no-brainer.

All the economic impact number, and virtually all of the people with a stake in downtown Concord, favor staying with a downtown site when new facilities are built.

Then why do some in the community have a sneaking suscpicion, might go against all that? Because a county commission that has been markedly divided on key issues is the decision-maker.

The original convention center plan, which also seemed to have a mountian of economic benefits on its side never gained county commission approval. The linchpin of the deal - raising the hotel occupancy tax by 1 percent, which would have been paid by out-of-towners - failed to gain a majority vote. What seemed to be a no-brainer turned out to be an Excedrin PM brainer.

In a time when central business districts in other towns are stuggling, Concord’s is thriving. Between 1990 and 2003, downtown saw a net gain of 81 businesses and 236 jobs. More than $34 million was invested in downtown redevelopment efforts, with the completion of 62 building renovations and 27 [unintelligble on my copy]

City officials estimate that about 300 people visit downtown Concord each day beacause of the courthouse and jail. Hundreds of courthouse and jail workers, attorneys and other court-related employees add greatly to the retail and resturant activity there. Relocating the courthouse and jail would pull the plug on all that.

A busy and prosperous downtown adds immesurable to our community’s quality of life. Perhaps that’s why a who’s who of players in this community have lined up in support of a downtown site, including the Chamber of Commerce, the Cabarrus County Bar Association, and City of Concord officials. They want to see the economic momentum in Concord sustained. Anyone with an interest in our quality of life should be concerned about this issue.

County officials are awaiting the results of a study by a consulting group that will recommend a site for the new facilities that will best server Cabarrus over the next 50 years. Given the enormous economic loss that relocating the facilities out of the downtown would create, we’ll be surprised of if the consultants recommend an outlying site.

But you never know.

To paraphrase Ross Perot - if the courthouse and jail are relocated - that giant sucking sound you’ll hear in Concord is the sound of economic vitality leaving downtown. It should take a pie chart to tell us that’s a bad idea.