Like GRO-Warren, the Warren Convention Center Authority exists now only on paper and in the memories of those who have followed the fits and starts - come to think of it, there have only been fits - of the hotel/convention center that was envisioned on the banks of the Allegheny.
We suppose that some people, somewhere, still cling to that vision as a sort of El Dorado, a mythical place of potential wealth and prosperity.
Nevertheless, the lead developer of the hotel/convention center earlier this year announced he no longer needed a municipal authority to funnel public money into the project, that he would soldier on with the kindness of private investors.
Three and a half years after the official groundbreaking, the only progress on the complex was some subterranean electrical work undertaken with money borrowed from another ill-fated project, the Allegheny Center for the Arts Building.
The authority had been hanging around in the hopes that Tim King, the lead developer we mentioned, would deliver on his promise to pay the debts the authority incurred in supporting his project. Mr. King, whose tentacles extend beyond the hotel/convention center to other failed gambits, including the ACA building, to no one's surprise, has not delivered.
The authority briefly considered taking him and his Warren Development Group to small claims court, but decided it would be more expense and trouble than it would be worth.
On Tuesday morning a disillusioned group of community-minded people resigned their positions on the authority, while allowing it to continue life on paper in case the city ever needs one.
Meanwhile, the former Loranger Manufacturing Building and the gravel promenade between it and the Clark Street Garage look just like they did on April 9, 2009, the day before the ceremonial earthmoving, the erosive power of nature having erased that work and the corrosive power of disappointment having extinguished the hope it portrayed.