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Chance to Beat Baylor TWICE! - Football & Bush Library

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Chance to Beat Baylor TWICE! - Football & Bush Library

Postby MrMustang1965 » Sun Aug 14, 2005 4:20 am

from the Sunday, Aug. 14 Waco Tribune Newspaper...

Sunday, August 14, 2005

UNIVERSITY PARK, TEXAS – It's not as if the town that grew up around Southern Methodist University needs George W. Bush to come to its economic rescue.

Here and in neighboring Highland Park, you'll find the Dallas area's highest property values, its most coveted public schools and some of the state's highest income levels.

People want to live here so badly they will pay a half-million dollars for a cottage on a quarter-acre lot, then demolish it and build a dream home.

In fact, this town of about 24,000 is so built-out that to build a major project – say, the George W. Bush Presidential Library – you'd have to tear something down.

Some might argue that University Park doesn't “need” the Bush library, at least not for the reasons that its competitors in the library derby think they need it. For Waco and Baylor University, those reasons would include redeveloping a neglected inner city, boosting the tourist trade and renovating their town's image.

Nonetheless, University Park residents are rooting for their school's bid, just as they would back the Mustangs against the Baylor Bears on game day.

“It's a priority for SMU, and we're a great partner of SMU,” said University Park Mayor James “Blackie” Holmes, 70, a graduate of the university and its law school.

“Economic development is not the issue. The issue is that it would tremendously enhance SMU's stature in the academic world. To the extent we can help SMU, it's to our benefit to do so.”

Of course, need doesn't win the game. And given the Bush family's intimate ties to SMU, many here would be surprised if SMU loses.

First Lady Laura Bush is an alumna who sits on the SMU board of trustees. Vice President [deleted] Cheney is a former trustee.

The Bushes lived from 1988 to 1994 in the nearby neighborhood of Preston Hollow. They remain members of Highland Park United Methodist Church next to SMU.

Governor George W. Bush kicked off his first presidential campaign and wrapped up his second with rallies at SMU. While still Texas governor, he bankrolled the Laura Bush Promenade next to the university library.

Marshall Terry, an SMU English professor and a longtime University Park resident, said faculty and community residents are confident of SMU's chances.

“There's a kind of a priori pride,” he said. “They think Dallas will surely get it. This is such a center of Bush's support. There are quite a few of us Democrats around, but the assumption is pretty much that you're a Republican if you live here, and that this is a logical place for the library.”

SMU spokeswoman Patti LaSalle takes umbrage at speculation that her university has a lock on the library before the bids are even in. A New York Daily News story in January quoted a “Bush insider” to that effect, but SMU officials say they have no such assurances.

“We are knee-deep in a competition,” LaSalle said. “I wouldn't make any assumptions. We don't want to be appearing to rely on relationships when we feel the most important decisions should be based on the merits of our proposal.

“It will remain a mystery until the end. People can speculate all they want.”

Baylor University Chancellor Robert Sloan agreed that the competition is just beginning. The president has invited eight Texas schools and cities to submit bids by Sept. 15, but has not announced when he will make his choice.

“In the final analysis, the president will make his decision on the objective merits of the proposals,” Sloan said. “I really believe that. ... The president is not known for making emotional decisions.”

Baylor began pursuing its vision of a Bush library in 2000, when Sloan was university president and then-Gov. Bush was still just a presidential hopeful who had bought a ranch in nearby Crawford.

While SMU has been mum about its plans, Baylor has collected hundreds of signatures of support from mayors across the state and announced the purchase of more than 100 acres of riverfront property on Interstate 35 for the library. City of Waco officials are heavily involved, envisioning hotels and restaurants around the museum.

The Greater Waco Chamber of Commerce has run a series of ads appealing directly to the president to consider Waco's virtues.

Last month, Baylor's women's basketball coach, Kim Mulkey-Robertson, took the community's full-court press all the way to the Oval Office, where her national champion Lady Bears had a photo op with the president.

“I put in a plug saying that Baylor sure would like to have his library,” Mulkey-Robertson recalls. “I said I understood his wife as an SMU alum would be pushing SMU, but we would not go down without a fight. I said, ‘We're very competitive.' He smiled, noncommittal, as he should be. He said, ‘She usually wins.' “

* * *

When SMU and Baylor officials talk about the merits of their proposals, academic prestige and transportation float to the top.

Sloan said Baylor is convenient not only to Bush's Crawford ranch but also to the traveling public. He said a site at the midpoint between Austin and Dallas could make the Bush library the most visited presidential library in America.

“We have a tremendous advantage, and it starts with the word location,” Sloan said. “We're on Interstate 35, on the longest, most beautiful river in Texas, in the center of Texas. We have a site that is accessible to traffic, to tourist traffic. Central Expressway (next to SMU) is a clogged commuter artery that tourists go out of their way to avoid.”

Backers of SMU's bid counter that their location has the advantage, being close to downtown and the Love Field and Dallas Fort Worth International airports.

A Dallas Area Rapid Transit light rail line that parallels Central Expressway ferries passengers from downtown to the Mockingbird Lane Station in eight minutes. That stop, just across Central from SMU, has generated a major development of expensive loft apartments, an art-house theater and more than 90 shops and trendy restaurants. Across the street, the former Mockingbird Hilton hotel is undergoing a luxury makeover, including a resurrection of the famous Trader Vic's restaurant.

The rail line and the retail development will complete the experience of visiting the Bush library, backers said.

Dallas City Manager Mary Suhm said DART will probably extend lines to the DFW airport in the next four years, making it even more accessible.

Suhm said she doesn't want to gloat prematurely, but she believes Waco faces long odds against SMU.

“I think SMU has a really, really, really good bid,” she said. “But I never assume things are done until your names are on the contract.”

Whether the SMU site is technically in Dallas or University Park, she said Dallas stands ready to help.

“It's really apparent that a presidential library is an economic boost to the economy, and we would be very excited to have the Bush library here,” she said. “We're prepared to work in concert with them. ... I told them over a year ago, ‘When y'all get ready, give me a call.”

At SMU, LaSalle would not discuss possible locations but said space is not a problem. The university for years has been buying up surrounding land, including the old Mrs. Baird's bread factory across Mockingbird Lane from campus.

The wedge-shaped six-acre tract is widely rumored to be the library site, but LaSalle dismisses such talk, saying the tract is too small and will probably always be used for storage. She said the university routinely buys land around its fringes to make room for expansion and prevent inappropriate development.

Mayor Holmes of University Park believes the best and likeliest site is between SMU and the expressway, on land now occupied by University Gardens apartments. The university has spent years buying the apartments – many of them individually owned condos – and the complex is practically empty.

Holmes said the university is continuing to buy older homes in the area to make room, he believes, for the library.

“I can't speak for the entire council, but I would certainly hope the residents south of University Gardens would have no objections,” he said. “Zoning would not be a problem.”

* * *

One could pinpoint some similarities between the communities around Baylor and SMU, which are considered frontrunners in the Bush library competition.

The universities themselves are historic, selective and Protestant, with staid brick Georgian architecture shaded by live oaks. In both communities, churches abound, conservatism dominates and residents say they live in Bush Country.

But the differences are considerable. Waco, though surrounded by middle-class suburbs, struggles with inner-city blight and poverty. The Park Cities – Highland Park and University Park – are known as “The Bubble,” seemingly impervious to urban woes.

University Park grew up on the prairie outskirts of Dallas, which refused to annex the village in the 1920s, to its lasting regret. Landlocked by Dallas and Highland Park, the town's population has hovered around 25,000 for the last 50 years. But land prices have escalated, especially in the last decade.

Buyers tear down about 90 homes a year in the Park Cities to make way for grander homes.

“(University Park) was a community that grew up because of a university growing beside it,” said Terry, the SMU English professor, who has written histories of SMU and has lived in the town since 1967. “It was a modest neighborhood into the ‘50s and early ‘60s. Now most faculty can't afford to live in University Park.”

Highland Park Independent School District is the biggest draw for newcomers to University Park, Terry said. But even those who don't have kids are loath to move because they enjoy the sense of safety and stability, the sense of living in a small town in the heart of a big city.

Sure, it's a rich town. Census figures tell that story: The median family income was $140,573 in 2000, and 28 percent made more than $200,000 a year. The local weekly newspaper, Park Cities People, tells it better with a feature section on the pros and cons of vacationing by private jet.

But an old-money sense of financial modesty remains intact here.

The soul of University Park is Snider Plaza, a shopping center north of campus that's decidedly more Norman Rockwell than Donald Trump in character.

It's a prewar, pedestrian-friendly collection of little brick buildings, with hair salons, toy stores, a bike shop, cafes and a beloved full-service Texaco station. The streets are lined with Lexus sedans and Range Rovers, but attire is golf shirts and loafers.

Locals gather at Kuby's Cafe for smoked pork chops and sauerkraut or at Peggy Sue barbecue, where the walls are lined with signed photos of customers such as Tom Landry and James Dean.

* * *

The small-town feel was evident earlier this month at a National Night Out Event at Curtis Park. Kids gobbled cookies and splashed in a state-of-the-art swimming pool while dressed-down grown-ups mingled with University Park police and city officials.

Jackie Brewer, an executive with the Minyard grocery store chain, sidled up to Mayor Holmes to catch up on local scuttlebutt. They speculated on the Bush library and where SMU would put it.

“They do have the inside track,” Brewer said of SMU. He said he welcomes the project, though the benefits would be indirect.

“There would be no economic benefit for University Park,” he said. “We're already built out. But it could be a huge image boost for Dallas.”

As they chatted, a thin man in shorts and a wide straw hat strolled by.

“Hey, it's the mayor of Potomac Avenue!” Holmes called out, and the man approached.

Ed Freeman, 71, is a retired banker and member of the town's planning and zoning board. For 35 years, he has lived in a duplex he owns near University Gardens apartments.

Lately SMU has come knocking, offering to buy his house and quarter-acre lot. He's certain it's for the Bush library.

“They want to give me a bunch of money,” he said. “I don't care to move. I'm very comfortable with my house. I've got a city park right in front of my house.”

Freeman's home is valued at on the tax rolls at $269,980. He said SMU made what might seem a generous offer, but he's not sure it would be enough to relocate him within University Park.

“For a single family house in University Park, you might find something decent but not new for $600,000,” he said.

Still, as an SMU alumnus, he backs his alma mater's Bush library bid.

“People at SMU feel like they really have the inside track,” he said. “A lot of people say they should not take it for granted, but I think they've been working on it very quietly. I think SMU has been interested in that for years. It wraps up the campus.”

http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/ne ... brary.html
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Postby H-E-B Mustang » Sun Aug 14, 2005 12:03 pm

George W. Bush is not the kind of person or president who is fit to be honored with a library on our campus. Baylor can have it.
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Postby BUTitan » Sun Aug 14, 2005 1:09 pm

H-E-B Mustang wrote:George W. Bush is not the kind of person or president who is fit to be honored with a library on our campus. Baylor can have it.


Ok,thanks we'll take it :D




I hope BU wins in just one of the 2. I dont really care which one.
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Postby jtstang » Sun Aug 14, 2005 3:04 pm

BUTitan wrote:
H-E-B Mustang wrote:George W. Bush is not the kind of person or president who is fit to be honored with a library on our campus. Baylor can have it.


Ok,thanks we'll take it

Better Waco a terrorist nuke target than SMU. What would we miss?
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Postby DallasDiehard » Sun Aug 14, 2005 4:02 pm

If it means we beat Baylor Sept. 3, I'll drive to Waco to witness the Dubbya Library dedication in person. I couldn't care less about that thing (and I'll sidestep the obvious punchlines about the UP mayor's comment: ".... it would tremendously enhance SMU's stature in the academic world ....") Just win on the field!
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Postby BUTitan » Sun Aug 14, 2005 4:47 pm

jtstang wrote:
BUTitan wrote:
H-E-B Mustang wrote:George W. Bush is not the kind of person or president who is fit to be honored with a library on our campus. Baylor can have it.


Ok,thanks we'll take it

Better Waco a terrorist nuke target than SMU. What would we miss?


haha, they'll just assume everyone hates him if its placed in Waco :D
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Postby BaldingBear » Wed Aug 17, 2005 2:52 pm

Personally i'd rather win the football game. It's pretty much a given that SMU is getting the library.
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Postby BUS » Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:36 pm

I believe SMU is winning BOTH.
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Postby EP Pony Fan » Wed Aug 17, 2005 5:46 pm

H-E-B: well said.

DallasDiehard: I'm with you -- win the game, hell with the library.

BaldingBear: Far be it from me to disagree with a Baylor fan, but I hope you're wrong .... on both counts! (Good luck after the opener -- make our win :wink: look better by shocking the rest of the Big 12.)
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Postby EastStang » Thu Aug 18, 2005 9:44 am

I hope we win both. HEB you are so wrong. A Presidential Library would bring something in the neighborhood of 200,000 visitors to SMU's campus every year. That can't hurt in recruiting. Mommy and Daddy drag junior to see the Bush Library, Junior sees hot chicks, junior likes SMU.
LBJ was a dirtbag, but that doesn't stop thousands of visitors each year from going to Austin to see his library. And what's really funny is such a library would not cost SMU one dime, its all donated by Bush cronies. Thomas Jefferson's Library at UVa. and his law library at William and Mary still bring thousands of visitors each year to those schools and he's been dead almost Two Hundred years.
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Postby NavyCrimson » Thu Aug 18, 2005 10:53 am

well said - east stang
BRING BACK THE GLORY DAYS OF SMU FOOTBALL!!!

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Postby Water Pony » Thu Aug 18, 2005 11:09 am

Another advantage is the opportunity to open the campus visually to the east. With a Presidential Library on or near the Central Exway, the possiblilies that the new East/Main Entrance and Quad might gain greater impact is appealing.

People in Dallas need a visual reminder of SMU, the campus and our value in city. With over 10 thousand curent students, SMU deserves greater recognition and support as the college and college team for Dallas.
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