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Red Mango is opening a location at Friendly Center. And the Swoozies at Friendly will be one of seven locations that will re-open later this summer.

Not that it makes any difference to me, b/c I don't have a dog in this fight. But a fee increase on rental cars makes more senses, IMO. General funds come from taxes that county residents pay, whereas the majority of revenue generated by a rental car fee would be paid by visitors who don't live there. You wouldn't be raising taxes on yourselves, but rather out-of-town folks. General fund revenues are one-time funds versus the rental fee that would be continually replenished. If Greenville County is or becomes financially strapped in the future (what municipality isn't these days!), the county would have to cut services or raise taxes on county residents to make up for the loss of those general funds.

A new store called Charming Charlie is open at Friendly. It has taken up two store spaces in the older section, beside AT&T where some of the Christmas seasonal stores used to open up. It's a women's accessories store based out of Houston. The store had a great layout, and I thought it was really cool how everything in the store was organized by color. All yellow stuff here. All turquoise stuff here. etc. I think this is the first store to open in North or South Carolina. But I wouldn't be surprised if others open quickly. I think women will really enjoy this store. Photo Courtesy of their Flickr page.

The groundbreaking for the aquatic center will be next Monday, May 3rd at 4:30.

Coming soon signs are up for a restaurant called the Prickly Pear Cantina at 536 S. Elm and the store beside it. The spaces were both formerly occupied by Antique stores before the buildings and several others were purchase by Momentum Development Partners.

RF Micro Devices announced today that it has successfully manufactured solar cells using the same processes that it currently uses to make cell phone chips. This is important because high volume production of solar cells wouldn't require any capital investments in a new plant or equipment. RF can simply make these chips in its existing plants. The company says it plans to begin selling the chips in 2012 for use in renewable energy production. Good news, especially if it leads to more jobs at its Greensboro headquarters and plant.

Carlyle might not be closed for long. One of the former owners bought the IP rights to the company and 14 store leases, including the one at Southpark. More here.

The city thinks downtown will require two more parking decks over the next 18-36 months. One has been proposed for Green and McGee, near the new building going up at 324 S. Elm. Read more here. The pizza chain Donatos appears to be opening a new restaurant on the bottom floor of the Smothers Place lofts at 360 S. Elm. Anyone know anything about this? I haven't heard anything, but saw the signage when I was driving by tonight. Their pizza is delish by the way. Anyone know what's going on beside Fisher's Grille? A shot of 324. S. Elm that I took tonight. All five floors appear to be in place, at least the steel. Sorry for the bad quality. They were taken with my phone.

Greensboro artist Bill Mangum will be featured on NBC's Nightly News tomorrow night in its "making a difference" segment for his Honor Card Program. Read more here.

Chuckle chuckle. Not quite, d_Random. Without getting too off topic, I was referring to Perkins' general view on a number of issues, including downtown, public transit, and economic development. Back on topic, I just checked out the Coliseum's new website. It's much improved and looks great!

Well to be accurate, Vaughan is an independent and Robbie Perkins is a Republican, both of whom voted for it. But Robbie is on our side the overwhelming majority of the time. It goes to show that all those who were cheering a new, more conservative council might not get what they bargained for over the next two years. The other proposal for a bond didn't make a damn bit of since anyway, since the council members floating the idea are the ones that always harp about lowering taxes. Maybe they didn't understand where the hotel/motel tax money comes from. Let the construction begin.

One of the former owners of Carlyle & Co. appears poised to re-open the jewelry chain in the near future, according to an article in the Biz Journal. He confirmed that he was the principal in an investment firm that bought the naming and intellectual property rights to the Carlyle name, the headquarters in Greensboro, and several store leases, including the flagship store in Greensboro, and those at Crabtree Valley, Southpoint and Southpark. I always thought that Carlyle was a strong brand. It probably would have never gone into liquidation had it not been for the financial troubles of the parent company that bought it back in 2005.

Five Guys and Zoe's Kitchen are both now open at Friendly.

Winston-Salem based Targacept has signed a deal with AstraZeneca that could eventually be worth up to $1.2 billion, for development and royalty rights to sell Targacept's TC-5214 drug for Major Depressive Disorder. This includes an upfront payment of $200 million. Good news for WS and its growing life sciences fields. Read more here.

I'm with you. This certainly isn't my dream city council. I'm about as liberal as they come But I'm not going to harp on the past or what Greensboro did or did not do, because none of us can change it. And comparing Greensboro to Raleigh or Charlotte doesn't help either, because they are all fundamentally different places. It's ok and even good to know what other cities in the state are doing. But we should focus more about what we can do to make Greensboro a better city and the Triad a better region. Back on topic. I don't think the swim center is in jeopardy. After all, it would be hard for the so-called fiscal conservatives who tried to table it tonight to explain how, wasting the $1.5+ million that's already been spent on the center's design, is good stewardship of the city's finances that they proclaim they embody.