Author Archives: Colin Krieger

Two Columbus Businesses are Up for Sale

By Business, Columbus, Culture/Entertainment, Foodservice, Retail, Retail Entertainment

Two Columbus Businesses are Up for Sale

COLUMBUS – Courtesy of The Dispatch

Barbara Swindol (Elbow Room) and Scott Carley (Thai by Thai)

Called The Historic Landmark when it was first opened, The Elbow Room restaurant and bar on 2nd Ave North in downtown Columbus had been enjoying a revitalization ever since Barbara Swindol reopened it in 2013. She had been working hard for many years to bring the place back to its former glory, and the hard work showed. Unfortunately, the venue is closed for the moment, as she looks for a buyer. Her adult son, Rob (who also worked there), was recently diagnosed with Leukemia, so Swindol has decided to focus on helping her family, so she has had to put the Elbow Room up for sale.

“I had no intentions of ever selling that bar,” Swindol said. “Rob put himself into that bar for a long time and just did a great job turning that around.”

She plans to have it formally listed the location for sale in the next few days, and things are looking up! She has already garnered interest from some buyers simply due to word of mouth. The venue will be sold as a “turn-key” operation – the buyer will take it over from where it stands now.

“We watched some amazing (musical) talent grow in that bar,” Swindol said. “I’m very sad to be walking away from it, but it really deserves someone who can make it their priority. My son’s my priority right now.”

Thai by Thai, a Main Street restaurant, is also up for sale, per owner Scott Carley.  He and his wife, Gon, had originally opened the place onWIlkins Wise Road about six years ago, and moved it to its current location near the art gallery in 2014. Carley cites lack of business as the primary motivating factor in his decision to sell. TBT will remain open for now, possibly with some menu changes.

“We’re going to try to add some things for people that are skittish of the food,” he said. “But Thai food is 100 percent healthy and made from scratch.”

The current plan is to sell the restaurant along with all of its recipes and equipment.

Barbara Bigelow, executive director for Main Street Columbus, reflected on the importance of restaurants to Main Street and Downtown in general: “We would love more restaurants in our area. We hate to have any that are considering leaving for any reason,” she said. “We certainly value our restaurants and would love to have more in downtown Columbus. The ones that we have now provide great variety to our community.”

It’s not bad news when good businesses go up for sale. These two vibrant operations are going to be a great opportunity for a willing entrepreneur…And THAT’S Good for Business! Here’s hoping for success too both sellers that they find a new buyer soon, so that these two great restaurants can keep up the good work with help from our community. With luck, the new owners will help both places reach great new heights in the future! Best wishes to both the current and future owners of both businesses in all  that they do!

Please click here for the original article.

Share This Post:

New Phase of Lowndes County Horse Park Has Begun

By Columbus, Golden Triangle, Lowndes County BoS, Parks, Real Estate, Recreation

New Phase of Lowndes County Horse Park Has Begun

COLUMBUS – Courtesy of The Dispatch

Lowndes County Board of Supervisors President Harry Sanders

“I got to thinking about how children in high school don’t enter these anymore, which is why we’re building (the park),” Lowndes County BOS President Harry Sanders recently remarked.  “Maybe we can get kids interested again in things we used to do when we were kids.”

He was speaking of the Lowndes County Horse Park which is situated on a 22-acre site west of Columbus, just off of Hwy 82 on Tom Rose Road. Sanders hopes it will become the perfect venue in Lowndes County to hold horse shows, livestock shows, county fairs, and other outdoor and agricultural activities. The site currently Lowndes County Extension Service office on 485 Tom Rose Road. Extension Agent Reid Nevins said the location has helped the department grow significantly within the past year:  “(The building) has been a godsend,” Nevins said. “Since we moved in during April of last year, we have had over 5,000 people walk through those doors. … That’s not phone calls, that’s coming in the door and interacting and asking questions and participating.”

The next phase is the horse park — a planned 45,000 square-foot open-air arena, which is projected to be completed in 2019.  Construction is set to begin before October of this year.

At least at the beginning, “[this] will mainly be used for rodeo show horses … the EMCC rodeo team doesn’t have a place to host rodeos,” said Sanders. “They’ve agreed to host their rodeos at our arena. That’s going to draw in a lot of tourist dollars. … It’s going to get used.”

“The sky’s the limit, let’s just put it that way,” Nevins said.

Please click here for the full article.

 

Share This Post:

New Italian Restaurant to Open Soon in Starkville

By Business, Delivery Services, Entrepreneurship, Foodservice, Retail, Starkville

New Italian Restaurant to Open Soon in Starkville

Courtesy of the Starkville Daily News – STARKVILLE, MS

Gondolier Italian Restaurant and Pizza, a family-owned chain out of Cleveland, TN, Is planning to open their newest location in Starkville next weekend. The location is in the building at 550 Russell, next door to Mugshots and the Mill on Russel Street. They plan to offer an extensive menu, including plenty of traditional Italian eatery fare, as well as Greek pitas and other items, as well.

Their website can be found at https://gondolierpizza.com

Please click here for the original article.

 

Share This Post:

Yokohama Going Strong as it Approaches its Third Year in West Point

By Business, Entrepreneurship, Golden Triangle, GTR LINK, Manufacturing, Real Estate, West Point, Yokohama

Yokohama Going Strong as it Approaches its Third Year in West Point

WEST POINT, MS – Courtesy of the Mississippi Business Journal

The front entrance of the Yokohama Tire plant in West Point. (credit: The MS Business Journal)

About three years back, Yokohama Tire Corp. president Hikomitsu Noji had been looking at sites in nearly every state of the union to find the perfect location for their first “built from scratch” U.S. Facility. Once he got a good look at West Point, he decided that this was the place for his $300 million baby. The city and county, at the time, was still suffering the long-term aftereffects of the 2007 closing of the Bryan Foods plant, which eliminated over 1,200 jobs. Fast forward to today, and the plant employs 650 full-time employees – they had originally anticipated 500 – and they hope to add nearly triple that in the future.

“It’s been all positive and we couldn’t be more pleased with having Yokohama here,” said West Point mayor Robbie Robinson. “There’s always hiccups with any new venture and there have been some. When they chose to build the facility here, it was like we hit the lottery. . .West Point and Clay County are very happy.”

Joe Max Higgins, GTR LINK CEO and vocal  promoter of entrepreneurship in the GTR, took Noji and others on a helicopter ride that included the ruins of the old Bryan plant: “The Yokohama president told me ‘I want to see Sara Lee’ and we loaded up in the helicopter we’d rented for the day and took three or four passes over the demolished site”, said Higgins. “After the fourth pass, the man just looked at me and nodded without a word. There was an emotional connection. . . I knew at that moment that we’d landed Yokohama.”

Dan Funkhouser, Yokohama’s vice-president of commercial sales noted that the addition of the West Point plant is critical to the company’s continued growth in North America: “The commercial tire market is very strong and growing,” he said. “Both the replacement and OEM tire markets are expanding. This fits in perfectly with the Mississippi plant, which will increase our capabilities to service our OEM and replacement partners as they grow.”

Higgins proudly stated,“I think West Point and Clay County have turned the corner.”

Please click here for the full article.

 

Share This Post:

Starkville Looking to Beat the Heat with First Annual Lemonade Day

By Business, Culture/Entertainment, Education, Foodservice, Recreation, Starkville

Starkville Looking to Beat the Heat with First Annual Lemonade Day

STARKVILLE – Courtesy of The Dispatch

Starkville will be taking part in its first annual Lemonade Day – an extension of National Lemonade Day – in conjunction with a bunch of young entrepreneurs and Cadence Bank. The purpose of the vent is to help parents and their enterprising children learn more about running a business – both the good (profits) and the not so good (dealing with loans and permits). Signup is at 9AM sharp at the Glo office at 419 419 East Lampkin Street in Starkville.

Cadence Bank will be offering small loans to the participants to help them get started, and the organizers are set up to accept a hundred or so applicants: “Loosely, we’re thinking it will be for ages K-7th grade, but we’re not going to limit that if an older kid wants to participate,” said Jeffrey Rupp, Director of Outreach for the Mississippi State Entrepreneurship Center. “This is fun.” MSU and seventeen businesses have agreed to let the nascent shopkeepers set up on their sites.

Registrants will also receive a backpack with an entrepreneur workbook and access to an online interactive program that teaches them the lessons that Lemonade Day was designed to impart.

To learn more or to register for Lemonade Day Starkville, visit: https://lemonadeday.org/starkville

Please click here for the full article.

 

 

Share This Post:

Broadband Summit Opens Up Possibility of High-Speed Internet in Rural Areas

By Business, Government-related, Quality of Life

Broadband Summit Opens Up Possibility of High-Speed Internet in Rural Areas

HAMILTON, AL – Courtesy of WCBI

Last year, the Tombigbee Electric Cooperative began making high-speed internet available to some rural areas as part of a new program called “Freedom Fiber.”

“Fourteen miles east of the Mississippi line, some of the fastest internet speeds in the US at some of the cheapest prices are being offered, in some of the most rural parts of Alabama. If they can do it in Alabama, we can do it in Mississippi,” said Public Service Commissioner Brandon Presley. This idea spurred Presley to hold a “Broadband Summit” at TEC’s offices in Hamilton, Alabama. The hope is that they will soon be able to make inroads towards making such services easily available to the people of Mississippi for a reasonable price.

While the results look promising, one hurdle that will need to be jumped is current Mississippi law, under which electric co-op’s are not allowed to provide internet service to rural areas, just power. They are hoping that the issue will be raised in earnest in the next legislative session: “That has to be changed by the legislature first and foremost and I think it will, beyond that we’ve got to sell the co-ops on it, it’s going to be a heavy investment on the co-ops,” said Rep. Steve Holland.

A federal initiative has set aside about $600 million in grants to fund infrastructure and other costs that will be required to expand high-speed internet to rural areas.

Please click here for the full article.

Share This Post:

MS SoS Sees Educated Workforce as Vital for State’s Future

By Business, Caledonia, Columbus, Education, Golden Triangle, Government-related, Starkville, West Point

MS SoS Sees Educated Workforce as Vital for State’s Future

STARKVILLE – Courtesy of the Dispatch

Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann speaks to Rotary Club members at the Starkville Country Club Monday – Photo by Luisa Porter, Dispatch Staff

Mississippi Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann spoke to the Starkville Rotary Club on Monday, emphasizing the importance of education in order to help further improve the state’s future workforce. He noted that this need not always mean a four-year college degree, and that proper training via career tech centers can be just as valuable for students who are willing to undertake whatever training suits them:”Taking that silo, where we have a university, junior college, a high school, all of that needs to be towards one goal and that one goal would be to have an educated workforce,” he said. “And about 60-70 percent of that educated workforce will not have a college degree. That’s critical — I want you to have that college degree if that’s what you want to do. If you want to work with your hands and be a plumber, you can come to Jackson in the winter and make a million dollars.”

Hosemann said that it is vital to expose students to as many different career path options as early as is practical in their education, to get youths interested in learning about career paths that suit their own interests and talents. He also noted that, while our Unemployment level is low at the moment, that number only includes adults who are actively looking for work, and have been doing so only up to a certain amount of time: “The most significant number that we have in Mississippi is not what our percentage unemployment is,” he said. “It is workforce participation. We are at 55 percent between 18 and 64 (years old). That number is one of the lowest in the country. . .If there were 65 percent working, we could build bridges everywhere,” he went on to say. “We could have schools everywhere. We’d have plenty of money to go around. We’d have another 100,000 or 200,000 people working in Mississippi.”

Please click here for the full article.

 

Share This Post:

Steel Dynamics to Increase Steel Production at Columbus Location

By Business, Columbus, GTR LINK, Manufacturing, Steel Dynamics

Steel Dynamics to Increase Steel Production at Columbus Location

 

 

COLUMBUS, MS – Courtesy of WTVA

The GTR LINK recently announced Steel Dynamics’ plans to invest $200 million into its flat roll steel plant here in Columbus. They anticipate that the expansion will add as many as 45 jobs to the plant over the next three years as the changes are phased in.

Please click here for the full article.

Share This Post:

Ryan’s Buffet Shutters its Doors

By Business, Columbus, Foodservice, Retail

COLUMBUS – Courtesy of The Dispatch

Ryan’s closed earlier this month, and the property is for sale for $900,000. Photo by: Luisa Porter/Dispatch Staff

Another of Columbus’ eateries has shut its doors. Ryan’s Buffet on Hwy 45 recently closed down, leaving a note on the door to inform visitors. While the future of the establishment has been up in the air for some time now, it’s official: Escondido, California’s Realty Income Corp. is under contract to purchase the property.

Royce Hudspeth, the listing agent for the property, said, “We never stopped marketing the property . . . We have received two letters of intent from prospective buyers and are currently negotiating with one of those buyers. We will see if a deal can be done.”

Please click here for the full article.

Share This Post:

Unemployment Rate Spiking But Still Lower Than Last Year

By Business, Education, Golden Triangle

Unemployment Rate Spiking But Still Lower Than Last Year

GOLDEN TRIANGLE – Courtesy of The Dispatch

Data that was recently made public by the Mississippi Department of Employment Security is showing that unemployment in the area (Clay, Lowndes, Oktibbeha and Noxubee counties) has flattened out as of late, helping to mollify the effects of spikes over the past year; the overall number is actually lower than last year at this time. The most recent spike is believed to be a possible result of teenage students who are seeking summertime jobs.

Despite the recent jump, more able-bodied Mississippians are working today than at any time since July 2008. As of May, there were 1,218,700 people in the state with jobs.

Please click here for the original article.

Share This Post: