So many questions, so few answers — at least not yet.
Amarillo’s Local Government Council, which is overseeing the city’s effort to breathe new life into the downtown business district, today cut its ties with an outfit it had hired to be the “master developer” for this project.
Wallace Bajjali, based out of Sugar Land, apparently has gone dark. It closed its office in Joplin, Mo., where it had another redevelopment arrangement. Its phone line in Sugar Land is disconnected. The company is gone, or so it appears.
The LGC met this morning in closed session, then reconvened in open session to vote unanimously to put Wallace Bajjali in “default.”
What gives? Where does the city’s downtown plan stand at this moment?
Well, LGC chairman Richard Brown said the parking garage that Wallace Bajjali was supposed to manage is proceeding anyhow. It’s fair to ask: How does it proceed without a managing developer?
Oh, and what about the ballpark and the downtown hotel? Those projects were assigned to new developers and they, too, will proceed, Brown said.
The private financing for all this work reportedly has been collected — or is about to be collected. No worries. The work will get done.
Wallace Bajjali has been paid more than $1 million in public money for work it has completed for the city, so there won’t be any recovery of funds. So, what does “default” mean in that context?
I recall meeting some years ago with David Wallace — the “Wallace” in this former partnership — and was taken aback by the absolute confidence he expressed in his company’s ability to do this project on time and on budget. Wallace, who resigned from the company effective immediately, told us at the Amarillo Globe-News about all the successes his development company had achieved.
He said something about how his company wouldn’t be in business today if it had racked up a string of failures.
Well, the company that Amarillo has come to know no longer exists.
That leads me to yet another question: What in the world happened between the partners — Wallace and Costas Bajjali — that blew this self-described “success story” apart?
Given the public investment already laid out, the public deserves some answers.