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Sunday, November 7, 1999

A blight on business recruiting
Visitors always ask about old courthouse

There's a scene in Douglas Adams' satiric science fiction series "A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy" wherein a huge spaceship is hovering over the Earth and no one notices.
   It's not invisible. It's just that seeing is believing, and believing would open up a whole can of worms, so no one sees.
   The old Nueces County Courthouse is sort of like that. Local residents can go for long stretches driving past it, walking past it and looking past it. It's invisible to them, until an out-of-towner asks about it. Then, suddenly, they notice the crumbling facade almost as if for the first time, and find themselves trying lamely to explain the abandoned, deteriorating, historically significant eyesore at the city's doorstep.
   City's image suffers
   Many times, the visitors represent businesses looking to relocate. And many times, the old courthouse has scared them off, says Dusty Durrill, the local businessman and philanthropist who acquired the title to the old courthouse in 1992 in an attempt to save it.
   "Essentially you have an image of a city and you have business people coming to town when they're exploring relocating, and they like to see a vibrant city," Durrill says. "They want their company located where the surroundings give their company a good image.
   "And we have constant comments of why doesn't anyone do anything about that. And it's a negative image that nobody can erase. It's a negative image that's like a bad billboard that says nobody cares.
   'Dusty is right'
   "Do I know of anyone who said that's a reason they didn't come to town? I can't say that."
   Neither can Gary Bushell, a consultant to the Greater Corpus Christi Business Alliance. But Bushell, who has been involved in economic development in the city for 13 years, has shepherded many a visiting site location specialist around town, and he has heard the questions about the courthouse over and over.
   "Dusty is absolutely right," Bushell says. "I have been asked about that building by numerous prospects. It's like they're almost embarrassed to ask but they want to know.
   "It is in such a high profile location that you just can't come to Corpus Christi to do business without seeing it on your way in or your way out."
   Bushell won't go so far to say that the old courthouse is a hindrance to economic development or that fixing it up, like Durrill and County Judge Richard Borchard are trying to do, would be an economic development stimulus.
   "There are many issues that go into a decision to locate a company. What this would do would be to remove a negative initial impression."
   The county, which abandoned the old courthouse in 1977 and sold it in 1978, is looking into reacquiring it and fixing it up. The plan is for the county to take the courthouse from Durrill through a friendly foreclosure and grab $4 million from a state program for restoring old courthouses.
   Borchard agrees with Durrill that the old building deters economic progress.
   "I don't have actual numbers, but just by the actual looks of the place, I believe it. I can honestly say that is the front door of the city, and coming down from the Harbor Bridge, the first thing you see on your left is a sorry sight, an ugly sight that is not conducive to a good business atmosphere."
   Finally, the spaceship has landed.

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