Undoubtedly this story on Uri Kaufman pulling out of redevelopment of this mill (here) will be used as proof of the prescience and wisdom of the anti-Chalmers crowd.  See, if a project does not make financial sense or if a rehab that requires federal dollars to make viable falls through, it means that Chalmers would have fallen through as well. And didn’t you know that developers prefer to leverage other people’s money, not their own? What an outrage!

Of course, you must ignore Kaufman’s successful two phase effort in Cohoes as that messes up their narrative and you must also have the prescience that undoubtedly the Chalmers site will be developed into something awesome. And whoever develops the Chalmers site will in no way use financial leverage nor will they look to make a profit. Why that would be untoward! No developer in Amsterdam ever used leverage or public monies for development (Just don’t mention our entire downtown…)

Welcome to Amsterdam where financial leverage and profit motives as driving forces of private development don’t apply. So if you’re a developer who self-finances risky development and who in no way will harness public monies specifically allocated to encourage development projects such as yours nor to mitigate the financial risks,  welcome.  Otherwise, well, it’s a bit impolite for this post but ya know what I’m sayin’.

Meanwhile please ignore the ever growing inventory of aging industrial space that needs to be repurposed; that will be taken care of by the return of manufacturing to our city. It may have taken decades but I assure you it’s just around the corner.

Gee, I wonder why there’s no development here….