Michael Jackson's father, Joe Jackson, in front of the old family home in Gary, Ind. Officials want to build a Graceland-like project in the city.
GARY, Ind.—The landscape in this Rust Belt relic is punctuated by empty, hulking steel mills, dilapidated homes and vacant storefronts.
Now city leaders hope to repair Gary's image and revive the community's spirit with a massive new performing-arts theater and cultural center dedicated to the city's most famous son: the king of pop, Michael Jackson.
"This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity," Gary Mayor Rudy Clay said. "This will draw people here from all over the world."
Plans for a $300 million project outlined at a news conference here Wednesday include a 300-room hotel, shops and restaurants as well as a golf course and conference center. Likening the project to Graceland—the Elvis Presley museum in Memphis, Tenn.—Mr. Clay said he expected it to draw 500,000 to 750,000 visitors a year. He hopes those people would pump $100 million to $150 million into Gary's economy.
But the plans immediately ran into resistance from lawyers for the estate of Michael Jackson, who said they have not been contacted about the project.
Howard Weitzman, an attorney for the Jackson estate said in a statement Michael Jackson's "music name, likeness, memorabilia and other intellectual property are assets exclusively owned by the estate" and cannot be used without permission. The estate is also considering building it's own museum at a site yet to be determined, he said.
The city has signed 300 acres of land along the Little Calumet River over to the Jackson Family Foundation, which is headed by Michael Jackson's father, Joseph Jackson. The site is by a major interstate highway over which 300,000 cars pass daily, officials said.
Plans to capitalize on Mr. Jackson's global fame have been offered before in this hard-luck city on the shores of Lake Michigan. But this is the first time parts of the Jackson family have formally backed them. Gary city officials hope to break ground next year.
Still, it wasn't clear where the $300 million was coming from. Mr. Clay said private developers "were lining up" to invest in the project and no taxpayer money would be used to pay for it. He offered no other specifics.
When asked about the pushback from the estate of Michael Jackson, Mr. Clay refused to comment, saying only that the city is working with the Jackson Family Foundation.
Simon Sahouri, a Las Vegas-based real estate developer and the president of the Jackson Family Foundation, said six or seven other cities—some outside the U.S.—had expressed interest in hosting the project. But the Foundation chose Gary due to Michael Jackson's wishes. He declined to name the cities or potential investors.
"I'll believe it when I see it," said Dennis Forbes Jr., the third-generation owner of English Auto Service Center not far from the Jackson family home. "There are a lot of promises here but not much happens. Gary is basically a first-of-the-month kind of city; people rely on some kind of government check to get by."
Joseph Jackson said his son had said in 2003 that he wanted to build a performing arts center in Gary. "We're carrying out his legacy," Mr. Jackson said. "We're bringing something back." Michael Jackson was born in Gary along with eight brothers and sisters.
They were raised in a tiny, one-story, two-bedroom bungalow in a quiet city neighborhood. Joseph Jackson worked as a crane operator in the nearby steel mills to support his family. By the time Michael was 12 years old, he and the Jackson Five were world-famous pop performers. The family moved away in 1968, when the population of Gary was about 175,000.
Even before Michael died last August, dozens of fans a day made the pilgrimage to his Gary home, which the family still owns, neighbors said. But the steel jobs that helped feed the Jackson kids are gone and Gary's population has dwindled to about 96,000.
Across the street, the entrepreneurial resident of a home the same size and layout as the Jackson's charged tourists to come inside in groups of 11 to get a flavor of Michael's childhood and feel how crowded it was for the family.
After Mr. Jackson died, the trickle of tourists and fans trooping past his boyhood home grew to a torrent. Bus tours carried fans from Chicago, 30 miles away, and the home became something of a shrine, said Damon Hoskins, owner of the home across the street. He is confident that a performing arts center capitalizing on Mr. Jackson's fame will be a boon. "People love him and they come from all over the world just to be near where he grew up," Mr. Hoskins said.
Mr. Clay, the mayor, acknowledged that some residents will be skeptical until money is in hand. "Sometimes it's hard to hope when you've been down so long," he said. "But right now, hope is alive."
WALL STREET JOURNAL JUNE 5, 2010
