Great Expectations

As for the aid to small businesses, Bancroft says he might have been able to push that through, but he left at the wrong time. The priest moved to Detroit in 1995 to take over a cathedral there and start new redevelopment projects. The authority he left behind has no current plans to help the businesses.

"It's a difficult question, and people's lives are being hurt by it, and that's a shame," says LeBlanc. "In 2004, when the next layer of development comes in, those people will get a benefit, but the people that were there before got all the pain. That's not right, and I'll admit that. But I don't have an answer how to solve it."

Even though there are still plenty of rundown, vacant buildings along construction-ravaged Main Street, it looks as if a new, upscale, redeveloped world is closing in around Joe. The residential developments on the west and east sides of Midtown are filling up, with shops and restaurants serving residents on the ground floors. Richard Ziegler, director of research at the real estate consulting firm of O'Connor & Associates, says that apartments in Midtown are renting for the highest rates in the city, 10 percent higher than even the tony Galleria area. Robert Duncan, a property owner in Midtown, says the time to develop is now, so that construction ends just as the light rail is completed. LeBlanc talks about projects that are too "pie in the sky" and "confidential" to divulge.

Bill Sharp, who manages the retail center that houses Joe's, says that the owner likely will challenge the property's next appraisal in light of the fact that the construction has cost them tenants. That will help keep rents low for the time being. But even he admits that "in the long run, the small mom-and-pop tenants that have basically been up and down Main Street there will get pushed out." As property values continue to go up, owners will have to charge higher rents to keep up with the associated increase in taxes -- and to make up for rent profits lost because of construction. Owners also may be tempted to sell the property by offers they just can't refuse. Metro may bring new customers to Joe's neighborhood via light rail, but it also may usher in a pricey environment where a simple sandwich shop can't compete.

Or maybe not. Ironically, the hype surrounding Midtown and light rail inadvertently may serve to protect Joe -- at least for a little while. The land along Main Street may be undesirable for tenants now thanks to construction, but developers say that the anticipation of rail has led many landowners to ratchet up their asking prices. "Everybody thinks that land is worth gold now," says CB Richard Ellis broker Michael Palmer. The land is also divided up into small parcels, with many owners, he says. It's too difficult for developers to put together large enough pieces at low enough prices for the area to be profitable -- with or without rail.

Landowners of prime real estate in Midtown are asking anywhere from $20 to $40 a square foot. With dirt that expensive, developers will have to struggle to turn a profit. They'll need to create high-density, high-rent projects in order to get that much value out of the land. Mixed-use projects -- like the Post properties on West Gray in Midtown -- are the most likely to achieve that kind of value, but Ziegler says it's not easy to convince a lender to fund a large-scale mixed-use development. "You've got a lot of moving parts," he says. "You have to prove your retail rents and your office rents and your apartment rents. You have to show they're going to hit the targets you need them to hit for the property to have a value to support the loan."

Even if land along Main Street weren't astronomically priced, developers are likely to wait until the light rail is completed before they begin trying to develop along the line. "People want to see it, touch it, feel it, see the impact it's going to have," says LeBlanc. His predecessor, Bancroft, is more cynical: "You know what developers are? Sheep." They're waiting for a pioneer to show that a project on the line can be successful. Despite the success of light rail in other cities, including Dallas, there is still some concern over whether the mass transit plan will work here. Continued efforts by antirail groups to bring the under-construction light rail to a vote doubtless don't inspire unflinching confidence in developers. There is also, of course, the worry about the effects of an impending nationwide recession. And some wonder whether the rail line will really be able to change people's habits in this car city.

After light rail, there will be little to no parking on Main Street, meaning that business and development there will depend almost entirely on pedestrian and rail traffic. "Any retail developer would much rather have a clear, unobstructed, multi-lane street in front of them and two driveways into your parking lot," says Sharp. "You know, the standard deal that's worked all across the world."