Some impressive multi-million dollar returns on their $10,000 investment in "Karl Dean for Mayor 2007"

Courtesy of MDHA, Tower Investments already stood to score almost $15 million for land they conveniently owned right where Mayor Dean planned to build the Music City Center. Now we know that Nashville's housing authority seriously undervalued the land for a project that was touted by McNeely, Pigott, and Fox's hired spin doctors (also overseen by MDHA) as vital to Nashville's prosperity. If only Metro could have it both ways. But they cannot: a jury judged that the market value of Tower Investment properties is double what MDHA was willing to pay.

Crane Watchdog is once again delving into the details of the deal-makers, and they show us another nice catch:

In the last days of his first campaign for the Nashville Mayor's office, Karl Dean received $10,000 from Tower Investments executives and their family members ....

In late 2006 and early 2007, Tower Investments bought five parcels in downtown Nashville, all of which would become part of the Music City Center land. At the time, the convention center project was building up steam, with the recommendation of the Music City Center Committee to build a new facility, rather than expand the existing convention center. Karl Dean made the Music City Center a priority during his first Mayoral race in 2007, and Tower Investments pumped $10,000 into his campaign coffers.

Tower Investments would go on to sell three parcels to the authority overseeing the Music City Center, and the other two to Omni Hotels, which is building the official hotel for the convention center. While the parcels sold to the authority became the subject of a lawsuit, Tower bought the Omni parcels for $5 million in November 2006, and sold them to Omni for $18.3 million in November 2010.

Crane Watchdog has more info along with a spreadsheet breaking down the donations to Karl Dean for Mayor by the individuals who they say are linked to Tower Investments as well as links to the property deeds.

Tower Investments helped make Karl Dean a very powerful Mayor. Dean's Music City Center project continues to make Tower Investments a very wealthy company. Meanwhile, the local yokels will continue to face diminishing Metro budget returns and hits to already sapped Metro services as the wealth changes hands at the top of this pyramid.