March 2011 - Parks & Recreation - 16

Who, What, Where & how Around the Parks

Engines of Prosperity
Michael Messner's vision for parks is rooted in pure economics

M

ichael Messner
describes himself
as a civil engineer
who ha s si mply
learned how to invest. An understated self-assessment for a
Wall Street billion-dollar hedge fund manager-but, at its core, an accurate one.
Messner, who entered the world of

to create more parks and open spaces;
however, unlike many park advocates,
Messner's Wall Street brand of activism
never strays from hard numbers. His
frustration with the trillions being poured
into backstopping bad real estate loans
has led him to an innovative partnership with Georgia Tech: the Red Fields
to Green Fields Project.

estate at zero percent interest through
the banks. Nationally, a fund of this magnitude would, he argues, stabilize the $30
trillion real estate market and create the
potential for a sizable return on investment, Messner explains.
The Federal Reserve would next buy
into the fund gradually, purchasing the
new land-backed securities as it sold off

Michael and Jenny Messner

finance not long after graduating from
Georgia Tech with a civil engineering degree in the '80s, knows real estate and development. He has seen both
boom and bust-and he understands the
many subtle and not-so-subtle ways that
excessive development can be a drag on
the nation's financial system and economy. Messner is a staunch advocate for
bulldozing failed commercial properties

14	 Parks & Recreation      M A R C H

The mission of Messner's publicprivate effort is to acquire financially distressed properties in Atlanta (i.e.,
properties " in the red " ) and to convert them to parks and adjacent land
" banked " for future sustainable development. How does Messner propose to
do that? First, he envisions a $200 billion federally-backed land bank fund
that would finance purchases of bad real

2 0 1 1       w w w . N R P A . O R G

its residential mortgage-backed securities. Messner stresses in every interview
and speaking engagement that his is a
banking system balance-sheet proposal-not a pricey government bailout idea.
Ultimately, the fund would leverage
local equity capital. Public-private partnerships could buy distressed properties
and remove buildings, using loans from
the land bank fund. Part of the land would



March 2011 - Parks & Recreation

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