This page has been moved and updated. See Grundy, Virginia and the $200 million Bridge to Nowhere
I hate to say I told you so when this website warned against this massive pork-barrel waste. To quote the Washington Post May 6, 2007 in an article headlined, ”Counting on a Big Box Bailout,” the Post reports:
GRUNDY, Va.—With loads of dynamite and government dollars, the leaders of this struggling coal town in southwest Virginia set to work years ago on a bold project to engineer their way out of poverty and the flood path of the Levisa Fork River. The “New Grundy” of planners’ sketches was an Appalachian version of an upscale urban village, with distinctive shops, apartments and high-tech businesses that would spark an economic revival of the town. This grand vision didn’t fit in the canyon-like confines of the old Grundy (population 1,100). So with a miner’s disdain for the incommodities of geology, town leaders recruited the Army Corps of Engineers and the Virginia Department of Transportation. They demolished dozens of buildings along Main Street and, to make room for the new town, blasted away a mountainside.The $196 million project—costing more than $175,000 for every man, woman and child in Grundy—was scheduled to deliver the new town this year. But it hasn’t worked out that way. Many owners of the razed businesses pocketed their government payouts and don’t plan to reopen. The original goal of a revived small-town community morphed into something quite different—a future now heralded by an empty lot with a solitary blue sign sticking up from the barren expanse. “Wal-Mart Supercenter Coming Soon!” it proclaims—the punctuation a comfort to some and a needle to others. Construction is scheduled to begin this spring. At a time when many communities are shunning the retail colossus, isolated Grundy has hitched its dreams of renewal to the big-box giant. It lobbied hard to convince Wal-Mart that the town has enough space, people and promise for a store—even offering to place it on a pedestal of sorts, atop a two-story, 500-space parking garage above the new downtown on the other side of the river...
- Changes in World Economy on Raw Materials May Doom Many Towns
- Study: Thousands of Wal-Mart workers on TennCare Pay is so low families driven onto welfare
- Illegals boost bottom line at Wal-Mart
- Wal-Mart Raids by U.S. Aimed at Illegal Immigrants
- Cleaner at Wal-Mart Tells of Few Breaks and Low Pay
- Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs
- Not Paid at Wal-Mart
Further:
U.S. Rep. Rick Boucher (D-Va.) took up the town's cause in 1997 and hashed out a plan for Grundy's rebirth among town leaders, the Corps of Engineers and VDOT, which had long sought to widen Route 460 to four lanes through the area. With a $96 million budget -- virtually the same amount as the state's share of a Capital Beltway widening project -- VDOT bought the old Lynwood Theater, Jackson Hardware, the Ben Franklin Five-and-Dime Store and a few-dozen other red-brick storehouses of nostalgia in downtown Grundy, much of which had been boarded up long ago. The 1930s-era structures were razed last summer to make room for the roadway VDOT will build along a levy designed to protect what's left of the old downtown and the historic Buchanan County Courthouse. Across the river, the Corps of Engineers spent four years and nearly $100 million to reroute railroad tracks and remove 2.4 million cubic yards of rock -- enough to cover 68 football fields with 20 feet of debris.
Congressman Boucher was behind anothe fiasco in neighboring Dickenson County where they spent almost $10 million to create less than 100 jobs. (As of summer 2007.)
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Posted 7/16/07