b'C o m m u n i t yThe Omni Hilton Head Resort in South Carolina, one of 50 hotels owned by Corpus Christi native Bob Rollingon barrier islands; all three cities are home to deeply-rooted military communities, and; all three are smaller in population within their respective states, but have benefited from explosions in growth in much larger feeder markets.Somewhere, a white-haired, kindly grandmother consoles an adolescent child who feels left behind by his or her classmates. Granny or Memaw or Abuela or Gammy offer solace in the Corpus Christi Mayor Paulette Guajardo promise that said child will, one day long from now, appreciate the gift of being a late bloomer. Without question, Corpus Christi is the unofficial late bloomer of Texas, the United States, and education. We want residents to understand that when we take these basic steps to create nicermaybe the entire Western Hemisphere, as the one place with every geographic advantage a city neighborhoods, everyone benefits. Property values go up, crime goes down, and neighbors lookcould beg for, but that just cannot seem to land the big, monumental investments that advanced out for neighborspride brings the community together. It always does. those other waterfront cities for good.Mayor Guajardo recently attended the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative, an invi- Some opportunities were not lost: the U.S.S. Lexington Museum, the Texas State Aquarium, tation-only event sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies and conducted by a team of expertsWhataburger Field, Texas A&M Corpus Christi, and the redevelopment of what is now La at the highest level from the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Center. At the groups firstPalmera Mall have been wonderful, lasting successes. Some opportunities fizzled out but were in-person conference since the pandemic, Guajardo attended the event in New York with 37not really the fault of the CitySchlitterbahn being the most notable, which collapsed under the mayors from around the world, all invited from specifically-chosen cities. Among her discoveriesweight of a highly-troubled owner and builder. The third category, however, are those big proj-was how similar the challenges are in so many cities, regardless of size or culture. ects that we lost due only to ineptitude and self-dealing by city leadersand hope can be found in the simple fact that Mayor Guajardo recognizes and understands this category. I came away from the Bloomberg Conference inspired to advance innovation in Corpus ChristiThe sister property to the Kemah Boardwalk, the multi-attraction waterfront entertainment dis-for dealing with two of our most painful and fastest-growing problems: homelessness and at- trict located halfway between Houston and Galveston, was supposed to be built on the Corpus risk youth, said Guajardo. Christi Bayfront on one of the three marina landmasses in the late 1990s. Landrys flamboyant One of the topics at the Bloomberg Harvard City Leadership Initiative was utilization of the Covidowner, Tilman Fertitta, negotiated for months with then-mayor Loyd Neal on a deal in which the Federal Assistance e311 Program that is designed to help cities across the country find and securecompany would pay $50,000 a year in renta small amount for such a property, for surebut billions in U.S. Government funding in response to the pandemic. To date, the City of Corpuswould build a compound of hotels, restaurants, entertainment venues and water attractions Christi and Nueces County have accessed over $100 million in federal dollars that are helpingthat would have employed hundreds of Coastal Benders while generating millions per year in cities recover economically from Covid-19, as well as to increase healthcare staffing and improvesalaries, taxes and ancillary spending.facilities. The City/County Health Department recently announced $38 million in funding to hireNegotiations broke down when Neal insisted that Fertitta hire a local construction company to do additional staff to serve the testing and vaccination needs of the community. the work, which he revealed in an interview in the San Antonio Express News. He told the paper CORPUS CHRISTIS NEXT BIG MOVES that he was moving $100 million intended for Corpus Christi to downtown San Antonio, after Our city has experienced over $52 billion in new investments since 2012, and we are just gettingrefusing to give in to Neals pressure to pass his investment into the hands of a favored contractor.started. Costs of living in San Antonio and Austin are going up at astronomical levels, right alongI want Landrys to give Corpus Christi another look! said Mayor Guajardo. We just havent with the traffic congestion. Houston and Dallas are concrete jungles, and I think Corpus Christihad anyone out there selling the city. I have the energy to do it, and its the best story in Texas. offers a better, safer and less hectic way of life, said Mayor Guajardo. We offer the most desiredThe big developers need to know that it is a new era of progress in Corpus Christi and the Coast-natural resources of any city in Texas, and we have plenty of room to grow, even waterfront. al Bend. We are open for business!The geography of the Corpus Christi Bay Area is almost identical to two of the biggest and mostIn the two decades since the Landrys debacle, opportunities with Bass Pro Shops and Intrawest successful coastal cities in the country, Tampa, Florida, and San Diego, Californiawhere baysResorts were lost due to negative pressure from a small segment of the public supported by a separate the city core and ports from the beachfront vacation communities, which are locatedhandful of elected officials who had the power to kill deals. Corpus Christis biggest fish-that-34 THE COASTAL BEND GUIDE TheCoastalBend.com'