Construction Update – City Pier at Pier Park

Moving along as scheduled, the city pier at Pier Park is still set to open spring 2009. With the main platform going on now and pilings being driven as they move out into the water, the pier is definitely beginning to take shape.

Quoted from my previous post:

Construction is “top-down” construction, meaning there will be no barge with a crane in the water driving piles. The crane will “crawl” across the top of the piles that it puts in in order to put the next series of piles. I thought this was pretty cool, as it allows them to continue work even if they have rough seas. Delays will be less likely.

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Pictures of Pier Park, Post 1 of 2

I was thumbing through pcbdaily the other day looking for good pictures of Pier Park and realized that I’ve never gone through and taken pictures of completely areas. I have broken up posts with pictures of some, but not all. So, this begins a two part picture story of Pier Park – completed!

Enjoy the north part of north part of Pier Park!

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Pier Park Introduces More Specialty Shops to Panama City Beach in August!

Lifestyle Center Continues to Strengthen its Status and Drawing Power in Florida’s Panhandle

PANAMA CITY BEACH, Fla. (August 6, 2008) – Simon Property Group, Inc. (NYSE:SPG), the country’s largest owner, developer and manager of high-quality retail real estate, officially announces the addition of more shopping options at Pier Park, the 900,000-square-foot retail and entertainment lifestyle center located on 93 acres that covers land from Front Beach Road (at the City Pier) to the heavily traveled Highway 98 (Back Beach Road).

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The Fed Leaves Key Interest Rate Unchanged

Yesterday, at the Federal Reserve’s regularly scheduled meeting, it was decided to leave the key interest rate at 2%. Economists had predicted a likelihood of the Fed raising the rate to help ward off inflation and slow economic growth.

This was the second scheduled meeting that the Fed chose to leave the key interest rate the same. Over the last 11 months, the Fed has lowered the key rate seven times. Given the economies fragile state with the weak labor and financial markets, it would seem that no move was the best move at this point.

In anticipation of the meeting yesterday, the markets rallied, up around 225 points before the Fed’s announcement. With the services sector falling less than expected and oil futures dropping to around $118 a barrel, the Dow had gained 330 points by the end of the day yesterday.

The S&P 500 rose just over 2.87% or 35.87 points and NASDAQ rose 64.27 points or 2.81%.

To Swim or Not to Swim? – That is the question.

I can see the justification now – “I’ve come 5 hours to see this beach, and I’m gonna swim whether some flag says I can or not. I paid for this trip, I should be able to swim.” The problem here, you see, is not that the “evil” police or safety patrol wants to spoil your fun, its that THE WATER IS NOT SAFE. This is nobody’s fault. This should be taken with a grain of salt. Whining and complaining about it is just as useful and crying when a baseball game gets rained out.

“The locals all know about the flags and how they work, and many of them swim. Then when the tourists come in, that know little about how it works, they see the locals swimming and figure its ok to get in.” One beach resident and business owner said today.

Do the tourists not know about it, or are they just choosing to ignore it?

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Half Marathon at Pier Park on Panama City Beach

Okay what is the goofy picture about? According to Karen all you need to do a half marathon is your cute little shoes and your nano and it helps to have a running partner. I guess you could do it without the nano with all your fun music but I would not try it.

I am so excited to let all my buds know that there is going to be a 1/2 marathon in Pier Park. Now all of us runners and wanna be runners (ie me) will not have to wait until the Seaside 1/2.

I spoke to Tricia Mayo at Girls inc and she gave me the low down

You must register at active.com which I supplied to you in the previous blog and your contact to be a volunteer is Tricia at 769-6703. The event is going to benefit Girls Inc and how exciting that we are bringing something so wonderful to our community of runners.

I would really love to hear from you and your running adventures. As for Kriss and I we are doing the Jeff Galloway run walk method which I have used in for sometime now. What is amazing about this method is how fast you can run a race ( now that would not be me… but other people run fast) It is also a great way to exercise without hurting yourself.

Olive Garden at Pier Park Prepares to Open

The outside is near complete, the parking lot is prepped for paving and the interior is being put together right now – Olive Garden in Pier Park on Panama City Beach is about to open.

The new Olive Garden is scheduled to begin hiring on August 13th with the goal to open on the 1st of September.

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50 Palazzo Condos Sold at Auction on Panama City Beach

That’s right, you read correctly. 50 condos sold at the Palazzo Auction held on Panama City Beach totaling over $17 million in sold real estate. “The numbers were a little low, but we sold a ton and I feel confident that we did better now than we could of, say, six months from now”, said Developer Ron Durham.

What started out as a cloudy, looks like its gonna’ rain, day turned into a beautiful, not too hot with gorgeous deep blue skies, day. In attendance were over 250 people with 126 registered bidders from 14 states and Canada. Required at registration was a check for $15,000 per one-bedroom condo, $25,000 per two-bedroom condo, and $35,000 per three bedroom condo.

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Publix Construction Update on Back Beach Road

15 acres of chopping, grubbing, clearing and sweat, Frank and Terry are just trying to stay cool. It isn’t working.

“All that black fencing? I put it all up by hand”, Frank said. “There wasn’t a machine to help.”

It all seems to be happening so fast, but then again, Pier Park was the same way. One year it was a huge dirt field, the next year it was a thriving mall with a constant flow of activity pumping through its retailers.

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Red Flag Fines?

An issue currently at debate is whether we should ticket beach goers that ignore warnings and enter the water despite red flag and double red flag conditions.

Walton County has been doing it for years and they don’t seem to have as many drownings as we do. Direct correlation? Hard to say. Does it help? I would think so.

Anything that is going to cost money will deter some people. It will never deter all, but it may help. In addition it could be another source of revenue for our county or city.

Sheriff Frank McKeithen said in a statement emailed the News Herald, printed in today’s paper, that the people that enter the water during dangerous conditions are not only endangering themselves, but endangering the officers, beach workers, or bystanders that may end up having to save them. Obvious point, Sheriff, but very good nonetheless. We need to do what we can to not only keep our tourists safe (despite themselves), but our officers and other locals that risk their lives to save others.

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