Say, what? Why is a government corporation with murky ties to tax dollars spending money to build office space for a profitable corporation? (URL here.)
Battle Creek Unlimited announced today revitalization plans for downtown Battle Creek, which could amount to $86 million dollars.
Plans include a LEED-certified office building adjacent to Kellogg Company’s headquarters. The building, developed by McCamly Office and leased to Kellogg Company, would relocate approximately 600 Kellogg employees from the company’s Porter Street location to downtown by late 2010.
Other potential plans include infrastructure improvements, a research center, relocating and expanding the Battle Creek Area Math and Science Center downtown and a downtown fitness and recreation center. BCU is pursing public and private funding to support the revitalization, and the W.K. Kellogg Foundation could contribute up to $35 million to various aspects of the effort.
“Revitalizing our cities is a key component of our strategy to grow Michigan’s economy and create jobs, but it requires a strong partnership between public and private sectors,” Gov. Jennifer Granholm said in a statement. “I applaud Kellogg for its vision and generosity to make Battle Creek a dynamic city of the future.”
Why does a successful company like the Kellogg Company need to get into a “partnership between public and private sectors” to build office space? Why can’t it just build or lease its own office space like everyone else does? That kind of partnership is just a recipe for corruption. In fact, it is corruption on the face of it.
I’ve lived 30 years just outside of Battle Creek. There have been revitalizations of the downtown for as long as we’ve lived here, and the place is still dead. It’s been cleaned up a little since 30 years ago, and you no longer get quite the sense that it’s a ghost town with tumbleweeds blowing across the downtown mall, but there are now fewer places to shopping down town than there used to be. My hunch is that as long as there exists such an entity as Battle Creek Unlimited getting involved in revitalizations, it’s going to stay dead.