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The garage and first level floor of the Lakeview Villa senior housing facility are in place on schedule, and construction of the housing levels is slated to begin Dec. 18 or 19, according to Good Samaritan Center administrator Jim Wolf. "We plan to be open in June of 2007," he said. The 28-unit complex will be available for both independent and assisted living. It will have an underground parking lot, above which will stand the three-story residential structure, looking out over West Battle Lake. "We've got 95-percent of the infrastructure complete," he said. "The sub-floor, including the 2-inch leveling slab which covers the tuck-under garage, was completed on Friday," The construction of the housing floors will begin in earnest next week.
OCEAN SPRINGS - City Planning Director Donovan Scruggs said Thursday he is going to work for Tolar LeBatard Denmark Architects of Ocean Springs to do planning-related consulting work. Scruggs, who became the city planner in 2000, said last week he would resign effective mid-January, but had not released the name of his new employer. Counting Scruggs, four city department heads have resigned this year. The firm, which is responsible for Cottage Square, a development of Katrina cottage modular homes in Ocean Springs, intends to do more planning work for cities. They would function essentially as planning contractors. "They wanted to expand into planning a little bit more and the opportunity for me to come on board was presented and we all feel it is going to be a great little venture," Scruggs said.
The heyday of the conglomerate is long past. Despite a thriving nostalgia for the 1970s, the vast and sprawling industrial behemoths that characterized that age have seldom come back into fashion, and never for long. Now the mood has turned so wildly that the clamor is often not only to question the point of conglomerates, but to argue for their break-up. Conglomerates have taken a battering from management theorists, too, with many seeing diversification as a way for managers to build empires rather than a way to create value. And stock markets have taken to imposing a conglomerate discount, forcing firms such as Tyco International (Ticker: TYC) to break themselves up.
The case against conglomerates can be summed up in two words: size and complexity. Size is said to slow down decision-making; complexity to create confusion.
In what has become an annual event, Loose Ties, a model railroading club from the Catawissa area, greeted model train enthusiasts to the show which featured trains from the newest and smallest "Z" scale to the "Inch" scale trains capable of carrying an adult. Jeff Johnstonbaugh, President of Loose Ties, isn't positive, but has a theory about the Christmas/toy train connection."I believe that after the depression, Lionel trains really started pushing their product as a Christmas toy," he said. "Back then, it was rather expensive and parents of children that wanted trains couldn't afford them as an everyday toy."According to an online article in the Detroit News, in 1937 Lionel started selling what became its most popular steam locomotive, the Hudson. It sold for a whopping $75, the price of a refrigerator back then.
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