Around Town

With the nice fall weather the last few days, the WayneWho crew was out running errands and made some notes.

The Martin Luther King Phase II project seems to be clipping along at a good pace. We recall seeing something when the bid was awarded about the entire project taking somewhere around 440 days, and by the looks of it they'll be done with time to spare. We wonder if there is any correlation between the speedy construction and the article in the Sentinel today about how suddenly school districts are finding more bidders and lower costs for new buildings due to the downturn in the construction industry. Regardless, congratulations to those who got the fast project pace into the contract.

We noted not one, but two signs announcing the upcoming opening of a steak and seafood restaurant in the (former) Safari Café building on 192. This is notable in light of the many restaurants that have closed on that same stretch, and we wish them well. We don't know anything about the particulars of that building, but we have watched it sit empty, but well maintained, for years now. We wonder if the building owner has been saddled with a number of lease commitments that never led to an open restaurant, or if it just took that long to find a tenant willing to open there. In either case, again, with it being a well-maintained building within eyesight of the end of the BeautiVacation corridor, the amount of time it sat vacant is a cautionary tale for any who think that 192 will bounce back as quickly as it fell, or that the mere existence of available buildings on that corridor will invite new businesses to move in.

We don't know if it's because this past week was the last of the month/first of the month, but it seems all of a sudden that the "For Lease" signs are out in force on commercial properties throughout the city. Much in the same way that earlier this year the residential real estate signs started multiplying (and they continue to), but now with commercial properties...we wonder where the businesses (and the jobs) are going.

We started on a congratulatory note, and we'll end on one. A round of applause to the local business community, who worked with the City Manager's office to come up with a relief fund for the business and nonprofit properties that ended up paying more, not less, under the new fire fee structure. That's a good example of working together to get something done.