Frydman to City: No Thanks on Captiol View
As reported by Eric Veronikis of the Central Penn Business Journal, Jacob Frydman – NYC developer known to Harrisburg for his pitch to lease our parking garages- has opted to not bail out the abandoned Capitol View Commerce Center at Cameron and Herr Streets in Harrisburg.
This is contrary to the story ran by PennLive on January 1st which alluded to the notion that Frydman would bail out the miserably and embarrasingly failed venture between Commerce Bank, The City of Harrisburg and developer David Dodd.
Dan Miller of the Patriot News wrote “But now, work on the building may be about to resume, as early as mid-January”.
“May be”
Further into the column, Miller also wrote “Calls to Frydman were not immediately returned on Wednesday. Harrisburg Mayor Stephen R. Reed’s office did not respond to a request for comment.”
Well gee, Dan. No shit? They probably did not return your calls because the deal is not happening.
Fact is, the deal is dead. Frydman ain’t buying.
And rightfully so- citing a damaged roof from a recent storm, construction costs to complete the structure were too high in a bad economy and many leins against the building, Frydman didn’t become the billionaire developer that he is by investing in shitty ventures.
The moral of this story, that is- the reason it’s winding up on my site today- isn’t to reiterate the news broken by Veronikis, rather, it is to point out the gross and blatant misreporting by The Patriot News and PennLive.
Considering that this post is going live at around 2:45PM today- Friday- and I received the same Central Penn Business Journal update email that the newsroom at PennLive received at about 1:00 this afternoon and that, at the time which I pressed “Publish”, PennLive has yet to issue their version of the story is further evidence that something is wrong in that newsroom; when a blogger can offer an update faster than the news organization that operates on a multi-million dollar budget annually.
Stop the spin and speculation, please.
You’ll get much more respect from us when you’re honest.
I called my eldest brother, David Dodd, for comment on this in November. He had none. Because he lives in Michigan, and isn’t the David Dodd that is referenced in your post. But it does make me laugh to see someone with my family name in a world of shit.
Maybe somebody should just squat there. It’d be occupied faster that way.