Are discussions of the business of development banned from this forum? There are plenty of people (me included) who would love to see such content discussed. To get into the specifics of Mizrahi’s track record, risk assessment of the project, who their equity partners are and how above-board they are (or not), and what that means for the likelihood that the project is successfully built.
My impression is that these things are not discussed due to some combination of:
- The people who actually have real details are “in the business” and one does not discuss details like this on public forums, it will get you shunned from professional life
- There is real legal risk (libel) in speculating on the creditworthiness of various equity participants or lenders to a project (in extreme cases there may even be actual real-world risk to ones safety if you start posting details about criminal sources of money)
But like, you say “people with actual knowledge and expertise are shouted down by the loud idiots”. That’s not my experience at all. My experience is that most people with “actual knowledge and expertise” will post some vague nothingness about how the project has shaky financing, without any details, and expect that to count and wonder why they are ignored. We don’t know you, we don’t know your reputation, you’re just a random on the internet trying to be like “I have real connections, trust me”. Nobody trusts anyone since we don’t actually know each other.
In contrast, post real, granular details and you do not get “shouted down”, you get voted up and people listen to you.
So, look, I’m not a regular poster here, and maybe others will have more to say, but my view is: discussions of the business behind the billion-dollar building are not off limits, just give it the same attention to detail and revealing, interesting information that the architecture nerds do, and it can be a great discussion and actually add value to everyone who reads it.