Besty, I figured $200 a foot which is very close to your estimate. I then doubled it becuase in 25 years of real estate experience I've never seen a project come in on time or on budget. I expect they'll want to gold plate their nest which drives up the cost. Either way, they can build it and have some money left over to live on. Central NYC is some of the most expensive real estate in the world. Selling it off makes sense from a financial perspective.
Posts by JeffT
-
60Is The WTS Building Beth Sarim 2 ?
by metatron ini continue to puzzle over the future direction the watchtower is taking.
it seems very strange.. let's review: they are selling everything off in brooklyn, raking in huge sums from that real estate and building heavily in a fairly isolated part of upstate ny.. why?.
it may be classified as a country club (legally).
-
-
-
60
Is The WTS Building Beth Sarim 2 ?
by metatron ini continue to puzzle over the future direction the watchtower is taking.
it seems very strange.. let's review: they are selling everything off in brooklyn, raking in huge sums from that real estate and building heavily in a fairly isolated part of upstate ny.. why?.
it may be classified as a country club (legally).
-
-
JeffT
Chaserious, I agree with what you say (particularly, upon reflection, regarding potential liabilities). However as you point out, most of the assets are still where they can be attached in a court case. A trust might work, but they'd pretty much lose control of the assets if they did that.
Overall, I think its about selling valuable land in NYC and replacing it with something cheaper upstate. I'm trying to do some research on what I think they're going to spend on the new complex, as a rough figure I'd say $500 million, but that still leaves them with a chunk of change they can invest and live off of for many years to come.
-
60
Is The WTS Building Beth Sarim 2 ?
by metatron ini continue to puzzle over the future direction the watchtower is taking.
it seems very strange.. let's review: they are selling everything off in brooklyn, raking in huge sums from that real estate and building heavily in a fairly isolated part of upstate ny.. why?.
it may be classified as a country club (legally).
-
-
JeffT
Transferring assets to avoid creditors or potential creditors is against the law, and it won't work if there is ANY connection between the new holder of the money and the WTBS or its affliates. The only way out of that kind of liability would be to dissolve the WTBS and give the money to some other non-profit organization. And officers of the WTBS could not serve or receive pay from those entities.
I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think this is a workable plan for avoiding lawsuits etc.
-
60
Is The WTS Building Beth Sarim 2 ?
by metatron ini continue to puzzle over the future direction the watchtower is taking.
it seems very strange.. let's review: they are selling everything off in brooklyn, raking in huge sums from that real estate and building heavily in a fairly isolated part of upstate ny.. why?.
it may be classified as a country club (legally).
-
-
JeffT
Regarding point one: they are not liquidating anything by selling one property and buying another. There is a clear paper trial between the two, meaning that claims against the WTBS can follow them to the new place.
Incidently, the upstate properties are hardly "isolated." Both Ramapo and Wallkill are less than a hundred miles from NYC.
I think this is just another piece of an overall downsizing and reduction in cost. Or would be interesting if they start their own Bible College there. It would be a way to snag some of the eighteen year olds that want to get out of the org. They could go to Watchtower College instead, maybe get a "degree" in pioneering, circuit work or overseas missionary service.
-
36
Would You Shun Your Own Son or Daughter For A Million Dollars for the rest of your life??
by Narcissistic Supply insimply for the money..
-
-
JeffT
Does it include making them take their crap out of my garage?
Seriously, no. While we're on the subject of motivating people to do things, read up on Stanley Milgram. Here's a good start.
-
15
Jehovahs Witnesses have no clergy,dont charge for weddings,have no collection plates,are no part of the world,live in a spiritual paradise,what other fallacy is their.
by smiddy inthese are just some of the things i was told studying with the witnesses in 1959 .in 1960 we got married in one of the few kh`s that existed in melb.at the time .and we were required to pay/contribute to the bro.who conducted the service.. i was led to beleive in my studys that smoking was a no,no ,so i gave up ,learning later that wasnt the case ,the ministerial servant book study conductor in our group still did smoke.
( the ban on smoking didnt come in till later on ).
while they may not have passed the collection plate around , they did on a regular time frame appeal for donations from the platform for funds to offset the renting of a hall , my first congregation , or the upkeep /maintenance of a kh or for the"world wide work of witnessing" .
-
-
JeffT
None of their teachngs go beyond what's in the Bible.
-
14
employment question
by XstuckX inhello everyone, this is my first post.
i've been lurking for awhile.
a little background...i've been a jw all my life.
-
-
JeffT
Truthseeker you're walking proof of the dangers of a little bit of knowledge. I fail to see what either of this legal terms has to do with anything being discussed here. I only hope the people you talk to here have the good sense to ignore your moonbat ideas about our legal system.
-
12
UPDATE: on the pirate publisher that was selling my book...
by Newly Enlightened inback in may, i had a friend email me after the release of our jwstruggle video and tell me that the book i wrote and had published was all over the internet and some of you requested that i keep you up to date, so here goes.. i hired an attorney to write the publisher a letter.
they stopped selling hard copies and the digital copies of my book but have still not sent a full accounting of how many of my books they sold and reimbursed me and are now ignoring my phone calls and attorneys letters.
so the lawyer suggested that since it is difficult to sue internationally, i call the local office of the fbi.
-
-
JeffT
Good for you. As a writer myself I take this stuff very seriously. I've seen a little bit on an attitude of "who cares if a big rich corporation loses a few bucks" attitude, especially about music and video. But we aren't big rich corps and writing a book takes a lot of time and effort, usually with not a lot of compensation. So far my writing career has yielded all of about $1000.
Hopefully having the US government of their tail will make these guys come clean.
-
122
Do You Regard President Obama In The Same Way As You Did BEFORE The Election?
by minimus inlately, even late night comedians are starting to make fun of the president.. i hear more negatives about the president than ever before---even from his own voters.. (i had high hopes for him when he beat mccain but since then, i believe the president has been a huge disappointment)..
-
-
JeffT
I like health savings accounts, as noted above I think doing something to encourage that plus a high deductible plan is a good solution to our problem. That combination encourages people to think before going to the doctor, but covers them if some bad happens.
Question: If you are providing the health insurance savaings accounts, but not the insurance itself are you subject to the penalty for not providing insurance? I know, implementation of that has been delayed for a year, what happens after that? If what your planning to do avoids the penalty (and if the employees actually go to the exhcange and buy the insurance) that sounds like a good idea. We should be hearing more about it.
-
122
Do You Regard President Obama In The Same Way As You Did BEFORE The Election?
by minimus inlately, even late night comedians are starting to make fun of the president.. i hear more negatives about the president than ever before---even from his own voters.. (i had high hopes for him when he beat mccain but since then, i believe the president has been a huge disappointment)..
-
-
JeffT
Beks
Specific failures:
I think the bank bailout saved wall street fat cats at the expense of the small fry. People lost their houses while the people who gave them bad loans got their money back from the government. The downstream consequences of this are/will be terrible. We've essentially made it public policy to tell the moneychangers not to worry, if they screw it up will make sure they keep the three vacation houses and fancy cars.
The stimulus could have been directed to better uses, specifically fixing our crumbling infrastructure. And it should have continued along that line, we have years of work to do and we'd get something we can point to for our money.
He needs to rein in a number of agencies (IRS, NSA, etc) who are spying on us. I think the drone strikes need to stop.
I don't think his mid-east policy (whatever it is) is working. Personally, I think the best option would be to tell them to go ahead and kill each other, we'll be happy to try the survivors (if any) as war criminals. Who knows, they might decide they need to come up with a plan that works. Right now they know that we'll always come in and stop anything that gets too heavy.
Health care should have been tackled in smaller pieces and with a more tranparent process. He should have jumped on Pelosi for her "we have to pass it so we can find out what's in it"remark. That really fed into the anti-big government anger. I think that lowering the eligibilty age for Medicare would have been a good start. It would have removed a high risk group from the general insurance pool, thereby lowering costs. Assisting low income people to get started with high deductable plans with health savings accounts would also help. Yes, I recognize this would take a direct subsidy from the government.
I think he needs to get serious about cutting the deficiet.
The military's procurement process is awful, and made worse by congressional action designed to send pork home, not defend the country. He needs to step in as Commander in Cheif an fix it, or fix what he can.
This list is in no particular order as I wrote it as I thought of it. Lots of it applies to many past and possibly future Presidents.
As general advice to President's I'd say "STF once in a while." It used to be that a President gave about four speeches a year. That changed around 1900. The advantage in the old days was that when he talked, people paid attention because it was a rare event. Now I think people zone out when the President gives a speech.