Cinema project a good show

Developers seldom inspire public esteem perhaps because their purpose is principally to make money, which once was a socially acceptable objective in a free-market society but in recent decades has devolved into Hollywood caricature. The very term developer conjures images of hucksters with slick hair and unctuous smiles to match along with a lust for ravaging the earth. Now comes Bill Hausrath, defying images.

A well-known local developer identifiable these days mostly with the Wayne Theatre project and an ally of the City Council’s so-called progressive faction, Hausrath is a lead player in a project to build a 12-screen cinema, offices, restaurants and housing off an extended Windigrove Drive in the city’s West End. News of the plan, reported first Wednesday on the front page of The News Virginian, provided welcome jolts.

Hausrath, who orchestrated the renovation of Fairfax Hall, is likely to be regarded as a hero if he can pull off the addition of a multitheater cinema complex in Waynesboro, something for which locals have longed for decades.

Timing is a savvy developer’s knack, and Hausrath has this in at least one notable sense. A week ago, the lead headline in this newspaper told readers unemployment in Waynesboro had spiked at 11.1 percent, the highest rate in decades. That is the result of massive layoffs at major city employers, Invista the best-known among them.

The proposed Waynesboro Place development chases away clouds. “I think it’s a positive thing for the city with the current economy,” Vice Mayor Frank Lucente, a political foil of Hausrath’s, told The News Virginian, demonstrating a flair for understatement. “It shows that Waynesboro is still a viable town.”

It also might show tremors of revived economic life, the sort of which Federal Reserve Benjamin Bernanke described earlier this week in testimony before the Joint Economic Committee. More important, Hausrath’s project demonstrates the entrepreneurial spirit needed to lift the economy from the doldrums.

We don’t know the particulars – like most developers, Hausrath does not appear eager to discuss the details – but projects like these unfold over the course of many months of intense planning. This means that Hausrath and others involved in the deal likely were moving forward precisely as the economy both nationally and locally was moving in the other direction.

A pulse of optimism beats in the hearts of entrepreneurs opening their eyes to opportunities to which others are blind. America’s free-market system – under assault in some corners – feeds the temperament. This, more than any other, is the surest and brightest path out of the economic darkness.

In the case of Waynesboro Place, the project has entered government bureaucracy’s web, where good ideas sometimes go to die. Brandon Farms South, a limited liability corporation under Hausrath’s care, has asked the city to rezone 40 acres, the first hurdle in getting the development to happen. Surely stormwater plans will be a significant factor later in gaining city approval for the project. City officials must be diligent here where some have suggested they were not in other West End developments.

But the city also must take care to work with Brandon Farms to keep the project’s wheels turning smoothly through the process. This does not translate to taking shortcuts but rather to the city plainly communicating its expectations and demonstrating the kind of shrewd reasonability that clears obstacles rather than creates them.

While Hausrath became a lightning rod over the Wayne – a project we continue to view with skepticism – he has shown throughout his career a passionate concern for the good of this city along with visionary qualities that Waynesboro Place appears to especially exemplify. We commend him and his group and join those who savor the shot of bracing economic news their project has provided.