May 01, 2008

Auburn--Southbridge Street

Last night I hit my first bucket of ball at the Auburn Driving Range and driving back I counter 11--13 signs that advertised space for rent, space or sale. That whole stretch is getting killed. My bet is that the 146 Mall put the big hurt on this stretch.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is why I am always saying that road growth = economic growth.....although I may someday have to qualify or modify that statement somewhat given gasoline prices.

Is it possible that forever rising gasoline prices could actually help Worcs economic dev'ment? Commuting gets too expensive and people will be almost forced to look closer to home for daily employment and companies will have to locate in densely populated areas, such as cities.

I had to drive to downtown last night for the first time in ages at night. I have to say the east side of downtown betweem Main St and I 290 really looks nice at night. Lots of new buildings, well lit, Union Station looks grand (although too costly), and I even saw some signs of life on Main St. that were not pajama people.

On another topic, I have been thinking that the $2M annual deficit at the airport is really interest costs. How so you ask? Well if we want to keep getting grant (contingent loans) money from Washington, then we have to continue to operate the airport as we currently do and that operation continually yields a $2M deficit. So the cost to maintain the place and keep it open in its current operating state (fully certified airport) is the $2M deficit. If we dont continue incur the $2M deficit we dont get the Washington money, right? Basically it's a $2M grant (contingent loan) at 10% interest ($2M/$20M). That's double the cost we could borrow at in the municipal lending arena.