Quote Originally Posted by Urbanized View Post
I'm no fan of either Wal-Mart or that development, but you know that store is surely one of the top-performing (if not THE top-performing) units in the metro, right? Do you really think the owners of a wildly (commercially) successful development will be tearing it down soon because they'll start wishing it had been built better? With MASSIVE swaths of undeveloped and underdeveloped land all over the city, if they suddenly get an itch to "do things right" do you think they might not instead do it elsewhere and let that development keep happily flowing rivers of cash? Do you honestly believe that Wal-Mart will close and/or move from a hugely profitable location because they are concerned that they might have created a blight on the neighborhood?

It's completely fair to look at that development as a learning experience for the city, and to use it as an example of what we should strive to do better than in the future. But the bulldozer fantasies we have on this board sometimes are so greatly-disconnected from reality, economics and the business world that it causes a loss of credibility when posting other subjects.

Yeah, Belle Isle was completely disappointing, but probably only about 1 in 100 people in OKC knows this or cares. It makes mountains of cash. Hate it? OK. But don't waste your time hoping for it to be gone anytime soon.
THIS. The development review process is all you have. Reality is that once something is built, it's built.mi hate when people say, well we can always fix it later..