Ernst's Economy for you: A shocking testimony of municipal greed and stupidity in Dutch city of Almere: op-ed letter to a local newspaper.

Three weeks ago, on 9 March, 2013, I wrote an article on a fuzzy and eventually disastrous deal between the municipality of Almere and the Commercial Real Estate management company Eurocommerce.

In this deal, Eurocommerce used an old school in the city of Zwolle and some building terrain in Almere as collateral for a huge €7.5 million loan from the municipality of Almere. With this loan, Eurocommerce bought terrain near the Central Station of Almere and developed two giant skyscrapers on it.

This skyscraper project was finished when the credit crisis and the earlier started Commercial Real Estate crisis were almost at their peaks, making it nearly impossible to sell or rent so much office space. When Eurocommerce eventually defaulted in July 2012, Almere got stuck with a bill of €3.3 million in Eurocommerce debt that would not be paid back.

In the aforementioned article, I wrote the following snippets:

I didn’t and still don’t understand why the Almere municipality approved of these two landmark buildings. Was it because the mayor and her aldermen wanted ‘a visible monument for their achievements’?! Did their combined vanity need CRE of ‘epic proportions’?! Who knows, but knowing the mayor of Almere, Annemarie Jorritsma, I wouldn’t be surprised.

Unfortunately, I’m certain that the mayor of Almere and the aldermen responsible for this presumed blunder, will walk without any consequences. As they mostly do… The poor citizens of Almere are the ones that must foot the bill for this exuberance.

The same municipality did its destructive work in Almere Buiten, a suburb of Almere and the place where I live. About four years ago, the municipality started a building frenzy in the midst of the credit and CRE crisis, in order to ‘refurbish’ ( or perhaps ruin) the center of this suburb: a classic shopping mall, combined with a mid-sized furniture and Do-It-Yourself plaza. The numerous new and megalomanic buildings had to be financed through the introduction of paid parking, with a considerable tariff of €2 per hour in Almere-Buiten.

What a lot of people and especially the shopowners already feared in advance, happened indeed: the slightly outdated, but cosy and usually crowded shopping mall and the furniture & DIY-plaza were turned into desolate and windy centers with too many high-rise buildings and too little heart. The introduced parking fees and the credit crisis did the rest of the destructive work.

Both the shopping mall and furniture plaza were almost overnight abandoned by the lovers of fun-shopping, in favour of the center of Almere and other cities. This left many shopowners in desperation. The people didn’t want to pay €5 in parking fees for a few hours of shopping in Almere Buiten, when Almere Center and other cities offered more shops and better entertainment, against equal parking fees.

At this moment, the refurbishing process is still not finished, but there is already considerable vacancy at the shopping space and many other shops are at the end of their financial stamina.

The following snippets come from an article in the local newspaper ‘Almere Vandaag’ of 28 December 2012:

Paid parking in Almere Buiten leads to heated discussions within the Almere community. In 2012, the shopowners of Buiten saw their annual sales decline by no less than 25%.

“We are in a state of shock”, according to Rob van der Tweet of shopowners community BuitenMere, while looking back at 2012. “Various shopowners are really drowning now”, adds franchiser-owner Maarten Vroom of the Hema store in Buiten.

“A considerable number of shopowners already had to close their doors for good and many others are currently at the brink of closing their shop”.

Today, Henk Thomas, an inhabitant of Almere Buiten, sent an op-ed letter to the local newspaper ‘Almere Vandaag’. As this letter says it all, I print it integrally:

Paid Parking in Almere Buiten

The discussion upon paid parking in Almere Buiten is in full swing, currently. The municipality of Almere suggested to mount barriers in Almere Buiten, but in the nearby cities of Bussum and Hilversum, this has already proven a blatant waste of money.

When Doemere [the furniture and DIY-plaza – EL] was deployed about 15 years ago, the municipality confirmed that there would not be paid parking in the future. But hey, what is a promise worth these days?!

When you walk through Doemere, you see the pauperization and deterioration in the properties. Advancing the display windows - suggested by representatives of the municipality - doesn’t help in my opinion. There will only be even more burglaries than today.

When will the community wake up?! When you do some shopping at Albert Heijn or other shops for a few hours, you pay €5 for this: community policy! If nothing changes, Doemere pauperizes and will be gone in two years.

I have nothing to add, but a few pictures, to this disturbing outcry, as a testimony of municipal greed and blatant stupidity in Almere. This greed and stupidity ruined both the appearance and livelihood of my beloved city-area, and the future and wellbeing of many independent shopowners, who see their business vaporize. A business, which took them so much energy to build up.