Like most areas of the country, the Central Alabama River Region has suffered from the residential and commercial real estate problems.
To chronicle specific examples, I've begun a series of informal "windshield" tours of problem projects in our region. The first in the series is a lifestyle center in a suburb north of Montgomery.
This city incentivized the development (just as the crisis was hitting in 2007), in part, by adding new infrastructure. To pay for that infrastructure, news reports indicate that the city issued bonds–to be paid back through the increased sales tax revenue that the city would realize from the new stores.
The problem? The vast majority of the lifestyle center never found tenants. The big question facing the city will be how do they pay back the bonds if the lifestyle center remains this dormant.
Here's the video:
–Chad Emerson, Faulkner U.