Telmnstr

What's ooka? Movement at some place across the street from the kebob shack as well. Saw some metal show @ Jack Quinns last night. Kind of amusing.

Nothing inside looked touched, and there was a bunch of dirt and leaves in the front door. It looked dead. 219 closed for renovations when it closed, too. Same thing with Harry's BBQ/Jaz on the Taz. It's kind of sad seeing local businesses for sale on Craigs. I've seen the Freemason book store up there a few times as well as some others.

Nice! We at the lab couldn't come up with anything in time, but I've got some pretty wild ideas if this happens again. The ideas just starting hitting me. Development time is long on one of the ideas. The good news is, I had the idea but not great at implementing it. Two friends were debating how to do it, and one was like fine, it's a contest. Let's do both. Contests drive people, so we'll see.

Virginia Beach people tend to drive to town center, so foot traffic isn't an issue. The deal is, there is more money in Virginia Beach. More people with more disposable income. What's up with Guadalajara on Granby? Looks dead, yo.

I was about to comment on the red brick fed building. I didn't know it leaked. Pretty wild.

I've got a wedding at 3pm and the Jefferson Lab open house at 9am. What time is the Art{sodEmoji.|}Everywhere event? 8pm?

Yea there is foot traffic due to people going out to eat. Once summer is in full swing you will probably see a decent amount of people on Granby, even at 1AM-2AM (bar crowd.) Also seen some people sniffing around the space formerly David Nygard Jewelery (City Hall Ave.)

Eh, having businesses founded on the pillars of underground illegal activity and having council members participate in illegal anti-competitive activity doesn't make a great city. I can see why companies will avoid moving their business to Norfolk.

EPIC amounts of drama over Palace on Plume. Looks like the guy behind it has a prior conviction of getting busted with 9 kilos of coke and a gat loaded with cop killers. He's not allowed to have an ABC license, so is doing some of the paperwork under another guys name, who happens to work for the city. Also, another city official (Burfoot) seems in on it. Right after they shut down every competitive venue around. Crazy stuff. City of Norfolk judge helped squelch this website which was critical. This is the cache. It will only last a day or two: http://tinyurl.com/2doupjf It may be politically motivated.

Yea 219 looks finished. I was walking in front of some older folks that were talking to each other "Hmmm I thought that place closed." New owner went all out on the place, replaced all the windows + frames and such. I think it's supposed to be Americana. Bootleggers sign is up, but so is paper over the windows. 3way cafe (huh huh) has quite a bit of activity, as does Palace on Plume. Wonder what the average turnover for restaurants on Granby is.

So like, the Fortune 400 they make is from the gov't, aka taxpayer? They don't actually make anything, just a middleman for tax dollars going to medical something or other?

I consider 21st street different from downtown, because those fast food places along Monticello aren't really foot accessible without a hike. Also, I think the mall has a single provider for the food court, which limits those options. It could use some new places tho. I noticed the ones there have cut down their little buffets of food (Cajun crud and the other one.) I've heard noodles are the new Burrito. In other areas, various noodle places are popping up all over. Just like Burritos did (Moes, Chipolte, Qudobos, and our local Machismo, etc.) Also the new office building near Norfolk Hospital is pulling some businesses out of downtown Norfolk proper. Not sure how the Jefferson Hotel building (I think that is the one that just got redone, you have to give it props, it looks good from the outside, could of used a parking garage behind it I think) will fare.

While these are new businesses, most are replacing failed businesses. The one exception is Palace on Plume, as that building was Heritage Bank which moved into Dominion Tower. There was also Heritage Bank presence in City Center building that consolidated into Dominion Tower (AFAIK.) 3 Way Cafe was the Blue Plate, which was called Coyote or something prior to that. Jack Quins was Jack Quins. Backstage was the Backstage Cafe, which I believe opened when the Norva opened. 219 of course was the 219. Bootleggers was Posh Dolche, which got run out by the city. Before that I think it might have been Wonderbar? To me Granby was on when Relative Theory was there. It died when that died. I just don't care about going out drinking every night. It's good to have the spaces moving again. As long as we don't loose ours :-) I find it hard to even go out to lunch anymore with friends because my coworkers were mostly laid off, and other friends bought houses and stuff and have quit spending all money to funnel it into paying their mortgage. My geek friends that come over to the lab actually drive a bunch of business downtown, but that is evening. Gotta get them to the kabeb place, I dig that place a lot.

Is that Esprit store in NYC, or is that Richmond? You know Norfolk would never allow any wicked nice looking signage like that, it's only allowed on their buildings (Nauticus) or buildings of their friends allowed to break their laws (Bank of the Commonwealth.) IKEA is MASSIVE. A good place for that might be Virginia Beach Blvd, old HQ building? Well, I guess there isn't enough parking there. Heck, they could put their place in Suffolk, the locals are used to driving 4 hours to get to Potomic Mills, they can drive over to Suffolk :-)

The MacArthur pharmacy closes at 4pm or 5pm.

Not an AmeriGroup fan? I don't know much about them. Know someone that worked there but left. I'm not even sure what they do. Thought it had something to do with social security. Does their money come from the gov't?

"Busch Gardens beat out Walt Disney World in Orlando, Fla., for the fifth straight year for the honor. The park also nabbed the second place spot for favorite theme park, which was topped by Walt Disney World" Wow!

Should of made that location a School of Rap.

Maybe it declined because people came to the USA to get away from England, and they ended up naming the local cities after England.

Very interesting! I just always assumed wealthy smart people moved to the Northeast or wealthy families setup there, and since then the areas grew.

Sorry, to me if the legal definition of City fits Norfolk and Virginia Beach, and they classify themselves as cities, then they are. Are you going by tall buildings?

Gotcha, good call. I tried to get friends that are participating at the hacker space to come up with something for the Art Everywhere contest, but no real interest perked up. Maybe next year.

Harry's BBQ on Granby: the for-lease signs are gone, the windows are clean and there appears to have been activity inside.

We've had friends go from making $40K in Hampton Roads to $100K in DC, and that was 8 years ago. There is more money to be made in the big city. Hampton Roads doesn't have the industry of the big cities. The local cities economic development departments got called out for marketing the region as a place to pay low wages for skilled people some time ago. There is a history of blaming this on people who exit the military, collect their retirement, and then are willing to work for lower than normal wages. I had a friend who had an employer say, during their offer, that the pay was based on his military retirement. He got very PO'ed and walked out (the company was Contemporary Cybernetics in Newport News, who has a very colored past of being a crap hole.) In terms of housing allowance, I'm totally against it. If it's pay, PAY IT. Don't only allow it for housing. The way it's done just opens it up to waste. If people have no reason to care about value for money, then it leads to waste. And don't buy into the realtor hype about there only being so much land and such. You hear that here, you hear that EVERYWHERE. Every city in the US has some BS excuse as to why it's different there. The water, the climate, etc. http://www.housingtracker.net/asking-prices/virginia-beach-virginia/ Of course the statistics don't exist in the local market (that I can find) that show the avg sq/ft versus price. So it's hard to tell if people are getting much more house now than before. While we debate these small time semantics, the people that enabled the housing mania and economic collapse of the USA just ran away with many lifetimes worth of wealth.

No email reply from them yet. No idea if they would go through that or not. If I were them, I probably would :-) I assume the power to apartments is metered separately and billed via Dominion so that would make it less likely. Who knows. Lots of for-rent signs down Hampton Blvd. Good number of empties in my building. Craigslist full of first month free ads. Everybody must be leaving Hampton Roads, or moving back in with their parents or something. There is nothing in this region to justify high housing prices. I've said it a million times :-) This area by far and large is pretty much garbage. No offense, I live here too, but yes, the area is garbage.