V24|NO22
In Full Swing Now that a couple of weeks have gone by, the predictable full court press of downtown promotion is in full swing (pun intended). The predictable stories about the restaurant boon, the low cost/high value lofts and the convenience of living downtown have hit like a coordinated barrage of artillery fire right along with the old standby from Margaret Woodard about the 99 percent rental occupancy rate. In fact, Woodard is now once again Center Stage, a cheerleader who’s found the spotlight. When the future of the downtown is at stake, people tend to forget about the CADI program and parking meters and stuff like that, eager to unite to once more save the downtown from ruin. The fear pushing all this smiling optimism is very real, yet the “If We Build It They Will Go” mentality has only very slowly proved successful at pushing out the bad things. And its ability to keep them out is questionable at best, as evidenced with the latest, violent variation of the old downtown slogan. But here we are after our restaurant resurgence eagerly thinking it’s time for a retail resurgence, complete with a three-year, $60,000 study. There’s a lot riding on the concept of retail therapy.
Let’s Make a Deal With attorney Wright McLeod announcing Tuesday that he won’t seek the Republican nomination for the 12th District, it will be interesting to see what kind of deal making Rick Allen and John Stone get into. Allen lost last year’s Republican primary runoff to Lee Anderson, who went on to lose to Democrat John Barrow, while Stone, the Republican nominee in 2008, lost to Barrow by a whopping 32 points. Allen, of course, has deep pockets, and with McLeod out of the running, he could gain some serious traction among Republican voters, assuming last year’s ugly primary battle didn’t leave a bad taste in their mouths. And while Stone has reportedly already tried to clear the decks in hopes of gaining momentum, many experts think Georgia’s Republican races are going to be sprints to the right, in which case Allen is the likely keeper of the flame. You can’t get further right — or more delusional — than thinking the nation doesn’t have any poor people, yet after last year’s election, the millionaire builder raised eyebrows by saying exactly that.
30MAY2013
AUGUSTA’S INDEPENDENT VOICE SINCE 1989
METROSPIRIT
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