Bike Week on Panama City Beach, Day 2

I didn’t have the pleasure of spending much time out and about this afternoon, but I was out tonight. As always, Ms. Newby’s was slammed. I had the great pleasure of meeting John McVeigh, who said business was good. There were people (and bikes) everywhere.

The weather was cool, and even almost cold riding a motorcycle, but the days have been absolutely gorgeous and clear.

It’s hard to say yet if the numbers are down from last year, but many are predicting they will be. With the current state of the economy and fuel prices, it is expected that many bikers stayed home.

I stopped by La Vela to find I just missed Kelly and The Healers. I’ll catch them tomorrow. Everything was slowing down by 9 pm, except the bars, of course. Edgewater was dead, but I did have the opportunity to see the Dan Lawson Band and the young Patrick jam it out.

Salty’s was busy with some pretty sweet bikes out front, one had a Jack Daniels bottle built into the take, cool.

Tomorrow should be a blast, I’ll have more time to visit the venues and check everything out.

Bike Week is Here

Hoards of bikers arrived yesterday with many more to arrive today. Most venues were not open last night, but Ms. Newby’s, as always, was slammed. With all the venues to open today, Panama City Beach is expected to be slammed with bikers from around the southeast US and beyond.

I will be posting updates and pictures as the week rolls on, stay tuned for updates.

Kissing Pelicans

First off, a big thank you to Jason allowing me access to this forum to showcase my nature photography of Panama City Beach and the surrounding Emerald Coast. I’ll be bringing you the natural side of PCB with a weekly feature photo.

From the peaceful black water bayous to the sugar white sands, the Emerald Coast is like no other coastline in the world. Like all cities, Panama City Beach has its faults, but at the end of the day we have beautiful beaches, emerald waters, abundant wildlife and glowing sunsets… what’s not to love!

The first feature photo is titled “Kissing Pelicans”. I caught these two pelicans “touching” beaks as if kissing just after sunrise on Grand Lagoon, in front of Baypoint.

Feel free to checkout more nature photos of the beach and the area’s wildlife at my photoblog Sand between Your Toes.

Teddy Meeks

Pier Park Announces New Stores

The list continues to grow as the number of retailers increases at Pier Park on Panama City Beach. With over 100 retailers currently open, Pier Park continues to WOW locals and visitors alike.

Retailers coming soon include Aqua Gallery, AT&T, Baja Cafe Beach Hut, Crocs Footwear, Famous Footwear, Guy Harvey’s Grill, Nike, Red Robin Gourmet Burgers, Runway Collection, and Polka Dots Toys & Gifts.

Baja will be next to Panera Bread and is getting close to opening with the other shortly after.

Airport to begin Paving Runway

Nearly a whopping 3 months ahead of schedule, the 10,000 foot primary runway is only weeks from seeing the first warm morsels of pavement. Although the current contract is for 8,400 feet, the funding is in place for the full 10,000 feet. Hopefully this decision will be solidified in the coming weeks.

“Next week, we’ll begin laying pavement test strips for the runway,” said the Senior Project Manager for KBR, Roy Willett. With over 130 pieces of Caterpillar equipment on site, the project has moved over 4 million cubic yards of material. “There’s been a great level of cooperation from a local, state, and federal level,” said Willett. “We don’t feel like we’ve had to pull this project along, like we have others in the past.” 80% of all storm sewer systems have been installed.

The main loop is paved, all except in front of the terminal. There are heavy utilities that will be in front of the terminal building that need to be installed before the the paving can take place. The 11,000 foot, 4 lane entrance road from Highway 388 has been completed since June and is now completely replaced the usage of the temporary construction entrance.

Looking at the terminal footprint, I expressed concern about the future expansion of the terminal building the additional airport facilities. Randy Curtis explained that the terminal building can be expanded to the north and south to accommodate demand and the concourse could V at the end to purvey supplemental gates. Long term plans also include another runway parallel to the primary runway with room for a terminal similar in size to the main terminal and a “mid-field” terminal as well.

With all the “bad” soil filling the holes where the “good” soil was excavated, the entire construction site is “balanced” in that no dirt had to be taken out, nor brought in.

The 10,000 foot runway will accomodate everything short of an Antonov filled with pipes.

Click here to download the special ‘VIP’ flyer that we were given; includes aerials, layouts, etc.

For those that didn’t notice on the sidebar, I was providing up to the minute updates (where cell service permitted) on my tour of the airport. If you want instant updates, subscribe to my twitter page and set up your mobile phone to receive text messages whenever I have updates.

Click here to sign up!

Pictures of Pier Park, Post 2 of 2

Yesterday was hot, very hot. The humidity kept me moving quickly in anticipation of getting back to cooler temperatures. Pier Park was bustling for a relatively slow tourism week. One of the goals that I had with pcbdaily early on is for it to document our area so we can look back on it in times to come and see where we’ve been. Like I said the other day, I actually had no final shots of all of Pier Park. So, enjoy!

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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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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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