By Kay Harris
The Valdosta Daily Times
April 19, 2008 06:41 pm
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If you haven’t noticed lately, spring is in full bloom and the events schedule has blossomed as well.
Every weekend, it seems that there is something to do for just about anybody looking to get out of the house. Festivals, a variety of shows, graduations coming up, downtown events, Brown Bag music series — all within the next few weeks.
Next weekend, April 26, you can attend two great events, depending on your interests. You can go to Lakeland for the Milltown Murals Motorcade, an all day event with vehicles from the 1920s, entertainment, food and more, followed by a parade at 1 p.m.
Or you can drop into Diva Day 2008 at the James H. Rainwater Conference Center from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. The event is free and there will be vendors and entertainment geared towards the women in the community along with awards for the Fashion Diva and Career Diva, and much more.
Events take much longer to plan than most people realize until they become involved in one. I’ve been on the Valdosta Christmas Parade committee for four years now, and we meet year-round to plan for an event that lasts only a few hours. I appreciate all of the effort others put into making their events successful and that’s one of the reasons why I try to give organizers as much extra coverage as I can.
Enjoy all the region has to offer and get involved!
Business Roundup
The retail business being built beside the entrance to Lowndes High School on Norman Drive is going to be a standalone Verizon sales center. They’ve had a lot of permits in recent months for cell towers, and it was just a matter of time before they came to Valdosta.
Out of curiousity, I went to the Ferron’s 21 Plaza Web site that is advertised on their sign at the construction site on Norman Drive as well. The site didn’t offer up much information, but did show a site plan with five retail spaces for lease.
I also was mistaken last week when I said that the Staubach group had purchased the property on Inner Perimeter between the Wooden Nickel and the new Farmers and Merchants Bank. The property is still owned by the Staten family estate, and the Staubach group was hired to lease it out. The spokesman for the family owners said if the group is one of the best in the country, and if they can’t lease it, the time just isn’t right for another center. He also confirmed what I thought but there are those in town who are insistent that they know better than I do, and truthfully sometimes they do, but in this case, I was right — no, there is no Olive Garden contracted for that property. There is also no Publix contracted for any piece of property in that area. Trust me, when or if OG plans to come to town, it will be announced with much fanfare over and over and over again, just in case anybody misses it the first time, and not just by me!
There was a little confusion around the office this week when an item showed up in the building permits and all it said, along with an address, was Valdosta RDC, $22 million. Wow. So I asked a friend at the RDC, as in the Regional Development Center, and he said they would love to have $22 million to build a new building, but it wasn’t them. Thanks to sources in the city, I found out in this case, RDC stands for Regional Distribution Center, as in the new Home Depot being built in Lake Park. Mystery solved.
Many, many construction projects are really taking shape in town, from the schools, including Westside and West Gordon, as well as South Georgia Medical Center’s two new structures, the Medical Office Building and the Ambulatory Surgery Center. And who could overlook the Lowndes County Judicial Complex downtown, literally as it just about blocks out the sun, but it is really an impressive building and is going to be a showpiece for our community when it’s done later this year.
It looks like all or most of the property that was sold earlier this year in the JN Bray family auction off Inner Perimeter Road closed this week, including the city’s big chunk for about $2 million. Wonder what they’re planning to build out there?
That’s it for this week, but I’m sure there will be more next week, and if there’s anything I missed, please let me know!
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