Politico: Why the Mosque Might Not Get Built
In a piece in Politico, Maggie Haberman and Ben Smith explain why the Cordoba House may not be built due to how the project has been mishandled by its developers:
When President Barack Obama turned the battle over a planned New York Islamic center into a national debate over religious freedom, he unwittingly allied himself and his party with an ill-planned, long-shot development project described by one of its most prominent allies as “amateur hour.”
The efforts to launch the $100 million Cordoba House (now dubbed Park51) two blocks north of the World Trade Center site have been an uphill battle from the start, and not just because of controversy. And even as the “Ground Zero Mosque” emerges as a hotly debated national symbol, New York government officials and real estate insiders are privately questioning whether the project has much chance of coming to fruition.
The Cordoba Initiative hasn’t begun fundraising yet for its $100 million goal. The group’s latest fundraising report with the State Attorney General’s office, from 2008, shows exactly $18,255 – not enough even for a down payment on the half of the site the group has yet to purchase.
The group also lacks even the most basic real estate essentials: no blueprint, architect, lobbyist or engineer — and now operates amid crushing negative publicity. The developers didn't line up advance support for the project from other religious leaders in the city, who could have risen to their defense with the press.
The group’s spokesman, Oz Sultan, wouldn’t rule out developing the site with foreign money in an interview with POLITICO – but said the project’s goal is to rely on domestic funds. Currently, they have none of either.
“They are in the process of hiring an architect — but here’s the thing, you’re not going to get the architect or the engineer because they don’t want to be involved in this,” Sultan, the new media consultant hired to handle some of the project’s imaging — mostly via Twitter — told POLITICO.
For all its problems, the project does have a solid chance of accomplishing one thing: further embarrassing the president.
But to veterans of New York real estate wars, Park51 provides an object lesson in how not to handle development politics in a city in which, even under the mildest of conditions, construction projects are fraught with potential peril.
Weeks into the controversy, Sultan told POLITICO the project's developers are hoping to get their "talking points" together.
"Give us a little time," he pleaded.
“They could have obviously done a lot better in explaining who they are if they really wanted to get approval,” said publicist Ken Sunshine, a veteran of New York’s development wars. “There’s a real question as to whether there's money behind this."
“As I understand it there’s no money there,” said another prominent business official.
A prominent supporter of the project was blunt: “This is amateur hour,” he said.
