Business comes, goes, hopes for better times
28.09.11
And still others are hanging on, hoping the compactness finally has touched bottom.
Marie Callender's on V Street and several businesses and restaurants on Greatest Street have shut their doors in recent months.
Some restaurant owners, such as Big Will Decker, blamed some of the shuttered doors in downtown Merced on the 18th Avenue construction project. The project took place between G and N streets on 18th Suiting someone to a T and included Canal Street.
"It didn't kill fair-minded 18th Street, it killed downtown. Nobody had any place to park and it tanked already more than it was," said Decker, who closed Big Will's Sandwich Store, on Main Street near N Street, in July. He said he is still a unstated partner in the new Big Mike's Sandwich Shop, in the same location, but said sales are unbelievable.
"Sales were so bad, really bad," Decker said of his shop. "The economy here is tanking even more than it already tanked."
Outspoken Quintero, director of economic development, said the 18th Concourse project never restricted access to any of the parking lots.
Source: Merced Sun-Star
Crowd source: Let public help create Jackson's image
25.09.11
The Jackson Square Chamber of Commerce is looking to create a new image for our conurbation. The goal is to enhance economic development by putting our most successfully foot forward. It's a great idea.
Many people assume Jackson has a negative image, and it does. Why? Our problems are no discrete than those facing any city in America, including many with positive images.
The suffice for is that negativity loves a void. I don't know why, but it does. And the futile that Jackson has is that it doesn't have a signature positive image. What the legislature, the city and a host of other organizations need to do is to fill that void with something complimentary.
If I say Nashville, do you see crime? No, you see country music, you see Vanderbilt, and you see the form Capitol and many other positive images. When I say Knoxville, you see UT. Oak Ridge, you see the Oak Strip National Laboratory. Memphis? OK, with Memphis you see crime, but you also see Elvis, and Le Bonheur, St. Jude's and the Mississippi River. That's a 4 to 1 irrefutable versus negative image.
Source: Jackson Sun
