The state is qualified to manage commercial real estate in the same way the unreserved William Donald Schaefer is competent to lead workplace etiquette seminars.
That?s why it?s good news the Maryland Port Administration plans to outsource management of the 30-year-old World Trade Center in the Inner Harbor to a private group. But why did it take so long? And why not permanently offload the perpetually money-losing building?
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Taxpayers lost $100,000 in 2006 managing the building. The state declined to release its operating costs for 2003 to 2005, nor for 2007. That can only mean one thing ? it?s a black hole. From our view at The Examiner across the street, it looks as if it?s half-empty.
Granted, flooding from Hurricane Isabel in 2003 sent tenants fleeing. But indecision about whether to sell it or keep it also sent tenants elsewhere and delayed needed technology upgrades. Outsourcing management won?t change poor decision-making at the top.
No private owner has the luxury of siphoning hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of taxpayer dollars to keep a money-losing project afloat. It?s incompetent management like this that fuels the so-called “structural” deficit and foists unnecessary higher taxes on Maryland taxpayers like the ones that just passed. We wonder how many $100,000s here and $100,000s there could have been cut from the state budget if legislators were allowed to debate raising taxes in the regular session instead of being forced to in special session without even a projected budget in their hands.
Putting management out to bid is a good first step in taking fiscal responsibility. But we?d like the Port Administration to publish how much it plans to pay a management firm and how much it would earn under any new arrangement.
While the I.M. Pei-designed building offers great views and a central location, tenants must park elsewhere. And new office buildings throughout the city offer more functional spaces with the latest wiring for all the gadgets today?s businesses use.
If the state cannot make money on the building through privatizing management, it must sell it ? if it can in the slowing real estate market. That would stop the hemorrhaging at least. Taxpayers must not prop up poor management that no private owner would tolerate.
