Today’s question
Yesterday, during Grinnell’s annual 4th of July parade, a number of us noted that the van from one of the real estate companies in town had a picture of the John Chrystal Center [1], as well as the Grinnell College stone wall in front of the JCC [3], on its side. Today’s question is: Why? More precisely,
Why is there a picture of the JCC on a real estate van?
Fortunately, Dean Latham was a few people over from me. I assumed he’d have an answer. But Dean Latham was as puzzled as the rest of us.
Here are the answers I’ve proposed [4].
- Grinnell has purchased a real-estate agency [5].
- We’ve realized that the budget won’t cover the balloon payment on the Bear [6] and so we have to sell the JCC to make up the difference.
- We’ve decided to raise funds by selling Grinnell’s identity to local merchants.
- It’s part of a broader pattern of selling Grinnell property. We’re selling Ricker House through one real-estate agent and want to sell the Chrystal center through another one.
- They are selling the JCC, but it will have to be moved, just like the language houses.
- Cornell is selling a building and the real estate company got confused as to which school contracted with them.
I tried to convince Dean Latham that the funds we raised through such a venture could cover a number of additional faculty lines. He didn’t bite.
What’s your answer?
[1] Or Nord’s folly
, as I like to call it [2].
[2] Actually, there are enough things I call Nord’s folly
that I should
probably number them. Let’s call the JCC Nord’s folly #23
.
[3] In case you couldn’t tell, JCC’ is short for
John Chrystal Center".
[4] Well, some other folks suggested at least one of of these answers.
[5] Or partial interest in a real-estate agency.
[7] The folly is the bonds issued to purchase the Bear, not the Bear itself [8].
[8] Issuing bonds is not a folly. Grinnell’s Triple-Eh rating means that we generally pay less interest on our bonds than we make from our investments. Building something the cost of the Bear without fundraising a significant amount first is a bit of a folly, particularly since the assumption was that we could retroactively fundraise.
Version 1.0 of 2017-07-05.