Dark Futures

Point Roberts is such a puzzling phenomenon that it is hard not to think about alternative futures for it. My most frequent dark vision is that the U.S. government will apply the powers of eminent domain to the whole place and turn it into Guantanamo II: The Sequel. All those people on the watch list will need a place to be watched more closely, I imagine. Fahrenheit 451 comes to mind (and it is Ray Bradbury’s 88th birthday today. Happy Birthday, Ray!).

Today, however, I was contemplating what the Sunshine Coast has become with all the development that has gone on here in the past decade. And it occurred to me that ten years from now, that’s what Point Roberts could be like, too. The Stanton Properties development (that 100 residence ‘Beach Club’ I mentioned on August 8) could be the beginning. I hear there are plans for another big development on the golf course, and yet another one at the marina. Next thing you know, Point Roberts, too, will be having non-stop summer festival events, no available parking spots, and a need for traffic lights.

All that seems very unlikely to me, though. The difficulties of getting in and out of Point Roberts are really too great, at least right now, to make that kind of development very likely. If banks and other big lenders are going to exercise some much-advised real-estate lending restraint, it seems unlikely that they would rush to populate Point Roberts with more unsold houses, even if it is a beautiful place.

No, I have a new dark vision for the future of Point Roberts, partially inspired by the giddy press excitement about McCain and his many houses. I’m thinking this: one of those trillionaires that are floating around the new globalized world and investing heavily in the U.S. (because we no longer have any money of our own to invest in the U.S.) could breeze in any day now and with pocket change buy, first, The International Marketplace and all four service stations. After buying them, he could just close them down. Then T.J.’s and The Reef would come into his portfolio, and they, too, would go away, along with their clientele. The same with the hardware store, the liquor store, and the remaining handful of small tourist shops and eating places. Six months later, after a winter of the residents having to go somewhere else to obtain everything, the trillionaire’s agents would be knocking on doors, offering a pleasant price for every residential property.

Six months after that, the trillionaire would own all 4.9-square-miles of Point Roberts, now a lovely gated-estate protected on the north by the U.S. and Canadian border people, and on the other three sides by the U.S. Coast Guard. The billionaire and his many guests could come and go by helicopter, thereby never having to fool with that border nonsense. Ed says the whole thing could be achieved with well under a billion dollars.

About ten years ago, there were rumors that Bill Gates was going to buy a big piece of Point Roberts to put a Microsoft campus in. Didn’t happen, but surely there are other billionaires out there, looking for a nice vacation home to add to their housing collection. It would be an extraordinary and rare Northwest project, an exciting opportunity to get in not only from the ground up but from all the ground up, and perfect timing for the investor who wants to be not only the end user but also the only user. Excellent location, steps to the ocean, the sky, and another country.