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Archive for August, 2008
What do Urban Outfitters, Clothing Warehouse and the Jinx have in common? Before West Broughton Partners came along, not a whole lot. Today the trifecta of coolness is poised to take over Broughton Street, bringing with them a lot of very enthusiastic patrons (ahem, myself included).
West Broughton Partners, formed by our good friends Peter Kusek and Ramsey Khalidi, came together several years ago around the grandiose initiative to renovate 219-221 West Broughton. This is a great story: Khalidi, a preservationist and president of RK Construction and Development and Southern Pine Company, recognized that the building’s bones and original façade were still intact, resting beneath a rather unsightly layer of stucco slapped on the building in the 1970s.
Before & After
 
So they went to task meticulously dismantling the cloak of several decades to uncover the granite frontage that you see today – and what you would have seen in the early 1900’s when the building was occupied by J.D. Weed and Company. It later served as a furniture store, a shoe shop, the Sears and Roebuck and the People’s Clothing Store before Broughton faced it’s slow, steady decline, thanks in part to the 1960 construction of the indoor shopping mall. In 1980, the building was Southern Auto Parts and then lay vacant from 1990-1995 until the Frozen Paradise club took over tenancy.
If you’re anything like me then you’re finding it a bit hard to believe that the end of August is upon us.
The good news is: cSpot is tonight, the last one of the summer. The hottest creative networking org in town will set up shop at Hang Fire, one of the hottest bars in town. Seems fitting, yes?
Join us, as we mourn the passing of watermelon and lemonade, fireworks, sandcastles and plentiful sunshine. (Save Fitz, who’s itching to bid a don’t-let-the-door-hit-you-on-the-way-out adieu to sunburns and weather that doesn’t bode well for blazers and pale noggins.)
I know I’ll be schmoozing my seasonal blues away. After all “Summer” is my middle name (first, rather) and I always mourn its passing come this time of year, for obvious reasons. Unlike some of us, I can rack up a killer tan.
So, whether you’re drinking to the “impending temperateness” or drowning your summerless sorrow, come join us at Hang Fire from 5:30 to 7:30 as we fill the place with creative conversation.
Yea, you heard us. ESRI, THE leader in GIS technology (makes ArcGIS, ArcView, ArcInfo, etc) featured SEDA (and their multi-functional property search website) on its community showcase section (scroll down the page).
The Property Search website enables users to search for available industrial buildings, office space, and land sites based on multiple search criteria. Results are viewed on a GIS-enhanced dynamic map and can compare locations to community features and transportation access. There is even an option to save a search in a personal portfolio. (FYI, SEDA maintains relationships with area developers and landowners and manages a database of property from 5,000 square feet to 1,400 acres. )
 
The Property Search website is such a great use of ESRI’s technology that not only did they request to do a case study on it, but they asked to showcase the site at the International Users Conference last week. Not too shabby, huh? We’re beaming with pride and admiration for big econ dev brother. You did good!
(A special shout out to Amanda Blind, GIS Analyst and Research Guru at SEDA, for her mappy muscle on this endeavor. Thanks for all your hard work…you go girl!)
For some, this may be old news. With all this great blog fodder to work with I have fallen a few steps behind in reporting the big news: Savannah is a great place to do business.
According to Inc. Magazine’s Best Cities 2008, Savannah ranks as the number three mid-sized city in America to do business and number fifteen city all-around. The ranking has been around since 2004 and reflects economic trends and employment data in 335 regions nationwide. In 2006, Savannah appeared on the list as the 49th best small city (top 50, baby) and 74th overall. The following year, Savannah made the leap from “small” city to “mid-sized.” (The qualification for mid-sized being 150,000 to 450,000 area jobs.) At just over the 150,000 mark, we jumped to the number 10 mid-sized city, 42nd overall in 2007.
Recognize a 46-place and 59-place jump, respectively, in two years time? So, what gives? What have we done so right to see ourselves kicking butt and taking names?
To start, we’re creating jobs. Here’s how the results are amassed:
Posted by Fitz Haile on August 14, 2008 at 02:28 PM
While Summer is in Chucktown doing the enviro-nerd thing, I thought I’d sneak in with a bit of webnerdery. Plus, it’s always good to lighten the mood after a politically charged 20-bagger (our internal nerd-slang for a post w/ 20 comments).
If you’re anything like me, you suck at email. I’m constantly behind, always cowering from the ever-growing bright-blue bold number next to my “Unread Items” (currently holding steady at 122 baby, yea!) Staring at me like a blinking bomb-timer, I always feel like its a measure of my failure to be productive (and inversely proportional to my stress level.)
Furthermore, the higher the number, the less willing I am to wade into the quicksand, having to employ all sorts of filters, labels and to-do list items that are basically intended to remind me to “do this later.”
Enter HitMeLater (via TechCrunch), a service that allows you forward any email to 24@hitmelater.com and it will send it back to you 24 hours later, putting it on the top of your inbox pile. Whoa! Has God been listening to my late-night prayers and email exhasperations?
At any given stage in an election season, political junkies, policy wonks, strategists, candidates, campaigners and the media know that the politics of voting blocs (evangelists, African-Americans, Hispanics, male/female, upper-class/lower-class, age groups, urban/rural, etc.) must be factored into any campaign. At least if you have any real interest in winning. And great campaign success, like terrific campaign failure, can affect political strategies for decades to come.
Well, hold on to your seats. Because we’re officially somebody. Whether you approve of using the “class” term or not, for the first time in history the “creative class” has been qualified (and quantified) as a voting force. Not only registering on the radars of present-day politicians but set to matter for elections to come. Hot dog!
Going back to the early 80’s, Reagan was the first Republican candidate to truly appeal to the evangelists, thus making them a voting force to be reckoned with, at the heart of the Republican base. And (according to the NY Times), their spiritually-influenced vote has changed campaigns and election outcomes ever since. It appears that, 28 years later, Senator Barack Obama has built the strong base of support of a new bloc. Yes, the creative class.
What was the past has now become the future.
No, no Michael J. Fox time-machine DeLorean DMC-12 here. BUT, our great friends over at the Georgia Historical Society (GHS) have given their old website a facelift. Times ten.
In an effort to beef up and streamline public access to their historical resource treasure trove, GHS got together with the gang at Smack Dab Studios to overhaul their (yes, “historic”) website.
Overall, we dig the whole juxtaposition-of-past-and-future thing. It’s part of what makes Savannah cool. (Plus, it reminds me of one of my favorite old-school TCCa-flavored collateral fortune cookie fortunes: “I see a historic future in your present.”)
So, the result of this transformation? Georgia history being brought to life (ala Frankenstein but much more attractive).
Yea, we know the folks at Smack Dab, and they’re good, creative peeps. So it’s no wonder that the website looks so good and is chocked full of new cool features that make it both user-friendly on the front end and easy to maintain and update on the back end. We’re talking an upgrade from FrontPage 98 (collective MOAN) to a Ruby on Rails‘ custom CMS (Content Management System).
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