thebarb20

McLeod will be constructing another parking deck beside the Pavilion tower. This is the latest news from the downtown area. The old library is still undecided on its purpose.

the majority of the voters did not support him but the primaries republican/democrat split the vote up b/c the majority of the republican voters would have voted for willis. i want to see real change on that side of town in wukela's administration, which is what he primarily ran on.

Wukela seemed to have pandered to certain demographic groups. His claims are that downtown redevelopment only focuses on the south side of downtown and they should have projects on the north side as well. Coincidentally, his family's law firm is on the south side of town. Maybe he could move the firm to help spur growth up there.

http://www.scnow.com/scp/news/local/pee_de...zen_meals/7172/ This is excellent news for Florence . This will further diversify the employer base and help develop the energy park. This will help offset some of the mortgage trouble b/c we have 3 companies involved in that industry. BofA, WaMu and Assurant

The project on Coit St. is going along quite well. Im surprised the FMU Arts Center is slow developing. They do a whole lot of talking about it for no frame yet. It's good to see some development down there.

i rode on the new 301 by pass sunday just to check it out. my thoughts on the road were this 1. it seemed quite longer than expected 2. there is almost nothing around it the whole way through, it was like cutting a road through a forest or field. nothing at all there 3. who owns the surrounding property of this new road? 4. there seems to be some kinda of land work being done near Palmetto ST. and this new bypass. maybe a mixed-use development or shopping center, basically it was just clearing land and possibly adding roads, i couldnt really tell too much. most of this road is 2 land w/ a center turn lane but it will eventually end up wider over time im sure. speed limit 55 i think.

The Florence Darlington Tech Southeastern Institute of Manufacturing and Technology (SIMT) I hope i got that right. its having an open house thursday evening if anyone is interesting in going. should be a key asset to encourage the right kind of economic development for Florence and Darlington's future.

terrible that it burned down, a true landmark. there was news today on the job front about adp annoucing an expansion in their cubicle farm. this should help soften the blow of impending job cuts from wamu's and bank of america's mortgage operations. it'd be nice to get more tech stuff instead of service jobs to help further diversify the workforce

you guys probably notice what i do. those power lines in the downtown pictures above are pretty bad looking. are there any plans to fix this aesthetic issue. i can envision that being replaced by palmetto trees. and street parking. that'd be pretty cool bring "palmetto" street back.

i think there are plenty of people passionate about our economic development that would post into its own forum, it seemed like MB's activity was quite low until they got their own forum. i keep an eye out here once a week to see if theres something going on that i missed. in regards to traffic i've started taking 340 to work to avoid pineneedles rd. its quite awful right now which further magnifies the need for the 2 lane rd. i have consistently ran into traffic @ 7:45 AM when turning onto the bridge from southborough rd. stoplight, thats a solid mile of traffic backing up

interesting point. i guess i would still be grumped w/ a 10-20% ratio of good jobs to unskilled ones, i guess i should let my negative notions go and be glad we are at least diversifying the workforce somewhat.

QVC opened up, i hear a roundabout figure of 900 employees by next year and 1200-1500 in the next few years. this sounds good and i'm all for it, im still worried that it does not provide the kind of skilled labor outside the medical profession that our community needs to grow outside of being a low-cost labor leader. force protection would have probably been a step in the right direction had it happened. i think we will get some announcements later in the year.

interesting idea. the hospital section is only a block away from the upcoming arts section so that would fit in well in between. when i worked downtown it frustrated me b/c of the lack of restaurants. it was basicallky wendy's or KFC or circle fountain. it would take half my lunch break to drive somewhere else to eat.

i havent heard anything else about that brew pub thing on dargan st. the last article spoke of it in planning stages

calling Morris Anderson a hick is completely unfounded. his contributions to west florence area have been great in recent years. i have no argument w/ mr robinson. disagreeing is one thing , name calling is another. our subdivisions are pretty tacky . and there seems to be no real plan for urbanization, it would be cool to get stuff condensed to protect the natural areas surround flo that we have. but tel l that to a farmer who makes 10X the money from selling his land than working on it. i feel like our town has become a corporate pitstop for companies looking to utilitze our low cost labor force and economic development policies however, i agree that downtown revit is a joke. there will never be any true downtown life again until the bad element is moved out. in other cities higher property values and no govt housing is a good start. in flo though , prop down there will always be rediculously cheap. being a baptist myself i am inclined to personally feel ok about a blue law, however i do agree that it is not the govt's right to determine what others should or shouldnt do unless it harms others.

i tried to delete a message a while back so i erased what i wrote about force protection, i probably said too much, but end of story, i was not pleased with the way that went down and us not landing that company.

i read in the paper that the economic development board stated that they were courting 13 or so companies and florence was the leader for 4 of them. any clue who that might be? also , they stated that economic conditions in florida are forcing companies to move up 95 for lower cost areas mainly b/c of health insurance costs and probably taxes and or real estate costs i think. so interestingly, florence seems to gain big-time by leveraging our low cost region. over time though as growth occurs we will lose some of those characteristics that made us attractive in the first place to these companies. seems kinda quiet lately w/ lack of news out there

Dick's Sporting goods just opened on the back of the mall. Also there is a new restaurant coming called Indigo Joe's. anyone familiar with it?

According to the paper this morning. The mixed-used office building on the corner of Dargan & Cheves (Old McLeod site) is about to get off the ground. The city council voted to sell 1 acre of property to the investment group and I'm assuming this rumor will finally come to reality. It did mention that there was 2+ acres in the entire Old McLeod site. so maybe the other part can be used for... a parking garage? who knows. but that would be cool.

Arbor One will not be all that significant from what I hear. Also , I'm getting word that a large announcement may be soon. Thers also a new hotel under construction @ I 95 and Hwy 52. Didnt know we needed another one up there eh. It will be at the north end of the interchange near the Ramada.

thats an excellent idea. also arbor one center is just going to be an office building. should've been built in DT florence, but i guess the I-20/I-95 area will become like another downtown the way its going, since theres a veterans park planned for the area as well.

word on the street is the new Home Depot has not done well so far. Could be that its very difficult to get to at this point with the butchered up roads and no stop light yet. Florence did drop the ball on this project years ago by not improving radio road when the civic center was built.

I HAVE NO IDEA REALLY, I JUST SAW A SIGN UP FOR IT.

there is a new "something" going up behind the civic center , called Arbor One Center. I havent had good interaction w/ that company however i hope they do well i guess. They are formally known as Pee Dee Farm Credit. Also I'd be willing to bet the corner of Pine/Gaillard is owned by McLeod , they like buying that area up it seems. You can verify for yourselves at florenceco.org on the property tax section, just put in the street name and see what comes up.

this sounds like a great idea. hopefully florence will consider a new ballpark one of these days to replace legion field. anyway, this will be a good way to get more college people into downtown.