Lubbock Left

Like it or not, the City of Lubbock has started to tear down the South Beach nightclub building, which was purchased in order to build a visitor center.

The visitor center — and more importantly the manner in which one is constructed or even conceived of — has come under intense public scrutiny recently. Also, Council members Klein and Leonard tried to revisit the current 6-10 million dollar plan with no success.

Some even consider the closing of South Beach to be a catalyst for much of Lubbock’s political activity in the past two years. It provided an excuse to circulate three petitions to attempt to recall Linda DeLeon. It got Armando Gonzales on the radio and running for the City Council. It’s drawn attention to the real consequences of downtown redevelopment. It’s called into question who stands to benefit from downtown redevelopment and whether it’s above-board.

I think that downtown redevelopment is a worthy and even necessary goal, and that it’s okay for both public and private money to be used to make it happen. But, the particular details of how it happens will have to be watched very closely indeed.