Podcasts about Grand Boulevard

Urban Lab, a Kansas City-based urbanist group, hopes to inspire city leaders to reimagine streets, developments, and public spaces. Founded by architect Matt Hasek, this grassroots organization has grown organically by creating compelling visual representations that help people see how urban spaces could be different.• Kansas City has more highway miles per capita than nearly anywhere else in the United States• The city once had 350 miles of streetcar, now reduced to just 2.2 miles of streetcar• Urban Lab creates detailed visualizations of specific Kansas City locations rather than generic urban spaces• Their work includes reimagining the historic Plaza area, the Grand Boulevard corridor, and proposals for highway removal• One of their designs is currently being implemented by the city, with 80-85% of their model likely to be realized• Urban Lab's process focuses on both building on existing momentum and introducing new concepts to spark conversation• Their visualizations target both the general public and city officials who can implement changeYou can learn more about Urban Lab here. Send us a textSupport the show

Hi!!!! We got another throwback for you! Grand Boulevard, which is full of history!! Take a listen. This episode originally aired October 3, 2022Send us a textSupport the showCheck out our weekly newsletter! Also, catch Dario on the new season of Netflix's "High On the Hog" here!!If you have anything you'd like us to talk about on the podcast, food or history, please email us at ⁠media@77flavorschi.com⁠ WATCH US ON YOUTUBE ⁠HERE⁠! Visit our website ⁠https://www.77flavorschi.com⁠ Follow us on IG: 77 Flavors of Chicago ⁠@77flavorschi⁠ Dario ⁠@i_be_snappin Sara @sarafaddah

A motorcyclist sustained life-threatening injuries in a collision with a pickup truck near Mill Plain and Grand Boulevard in Vancouver. Learn more at https://www.clarkcountytoday.com/news/rider-injured-in-motorcycle-pickup-collision #MotorcycleAccident #LocalNews #VancouverWa

Mike Ferguson in the Morning 07-30-24 David Stokes from the Show-Me Institute talks about the proposed MetroLink Green Line on Jefferson Avenue in the Downtown West area of St. Louis. The Green Line would include 10 stations and 5.6 miles of in-street light rail running from Fairground Park at Grand Boulevard on the north side, along Natural Bridge Avenue, east to Jefferson Avenue, and then south along Jefferson Avenue to Chippewa Avenue in South St. Louis, while connecting with the current MetroLink system. Story here: https://www.firstalert4.com/2024/07/26/study-shows-metrolink-green-line-will-bolster-st-louis-economy-critics-refute-study/ Green Line info here: https://metrolinkgreenline.com/   NewsTalkSTL website: https://newstalkstl.com/ Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/NewsTalkSTL Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/NewstalkSTL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewsTalkSTL Livestream 24/7: http://bit.ly/newstalkstlstreamSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mike Ferguson in the Morning 07-30-24 (8:05am) David Stokes from the Show-Me Institute talks about the proposed MetroLink Green Line on Jefferson Avenue in the Downtown West area of St. Louis. The Green Line would include 10 stations and 5.6 miles of in-street light rail running from Fairground Park at Grand Boulevard on the north side, along Natural Bridge Avenue, east to Jefferson Avenue, and then south along Jefferson Avenue to Chippewa Avenue in South St. Louis, while connecting with the current MetroLink system. Story here: https://www.firstalert4.com/2024/07/26/study-shows-metrolink-green-line-will-bolster-st-louis-economy-critics-refute-study/ Green Line info here: https://metrolinkgreenline.com/   MORNING NEWS DUMP: John Kirby comments on the situation between Israel and Hezbollah following the rocket strike that killed 12 children and teenagers in the Golan Heights region of northern Israel. Story here: https://www.axios.com/2024/07/29/hezbollah-israel-war-white-house   Sen John Kennedy (R-LA) says that Biden's proposal to change the Supreme Court "is as dead as Woodrow Wilson." Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hxEZzVVuIaU More on the Biden proposal here: https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-reform-biden-harris-trump-ffd48f3a2023aeca841bb53c2147ef03   A federal judge strikes down part of a voter-approved constitutional amendment in Missouri that banned state lawmakers from working as lobbyists for 2 years after leaving office. AG Andrew Bailey says they'll review the ruling. Story here: https://fox2now.com/news/missouri/federal-appeals-court-rules-against-missouris-waiting-period-for-ex-lawmakers-to-lobby/   Beaver County's Emergency Services Unit and SWAT sniper section says there were serious problems regarding communication and planning for Trump's rally in Pennsylvania. Story here: https://redstate.com/wardclark/2024/07/29/trump-assassination-local-swat-team-blames-lack-of-planning-communication-n2177507   Cardinals lost to the Texas Rangers 6-3. Game 2 of the series at Busch Stadium is tonight at 6:45pm.   We discuss those wacky memes about "JD Vance is weird" showing that actually he's normal and the Left is weird.    NewsTalkSTL website: https://newstalkstl.com/ Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/NewsTalkSTL Twitter/X: https://twitter.com/NewstalkSTL Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/NewsTalkSTL Livestream 24/7: http://bit.ly/newstalkstlstreamSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Frank Starkey and his family are one of those rare breeds of Floridians that actually have deep roots in the Sunshine State. We talk about how they sought to owner their grand-dad's wishes as they ultimately developed the family cattle ranch in New Port Richey. A big part of their work was the Traditional Neighborhood Development (TND) called Longleaf. And later, the Starkey Ranch project.Here's a funny real estate video about Longleaf: (funny to me, anyway)If you listen to Frank, you'll learn how an architect has a whole different perspective on the present and the future, and why he thinks he has a luxurious lifestyle now in downtown New Port Richey. You can see some of his current efforts at this link to his website.This is episode number 50 of The Messy City podcast - thanks so much for listening. If you're new to this, welcome! I look forward to the next 50, as we explore the issues and people who love traditional human settlements, and are trying to create them. I love talking to the do-ers, to the creators, and everyone who has skin in the game that's trying to build a more humane world.Find more content on The Messy City on Kevin's Substack page.Music notes: all songs by low standards, ca. 2010. Videos here. If you'd like a CD for low standards, message me and you can have one for only $5.Intro: “Why Be Friends”Outro: “Fairweather Friend”Transcript: Kevin K (00:01.18) Welcome back to the Messy City podcast. This is Kevin Klinkenberg. I'm happy today to be joined by my friend and fellow new urbanist, long time participant, Frank Starkey, joining us from Florida. Frank, how you doing today? Frank Starkey (00:20.337) Howdy, Kevin. Doing great. Happy to be with you. I've been... Kevin K (00:22.908) I didn't even check. I assume you're in Florida at home, but you could really be anywhere. Okay. Frank Starkey (00:25.617) Yeah, I am. Yeah. Yep, I'm in our we recently moved into a townhouse that Andy McCloskey, who used to work for me, built in town here and we just bought one and we're very happy here. It's really nice. Kevin K (00:40.348) Cool, cool. And you're in New Port Richey? Frank Starkey (00:45.169) Yes, Newport Richey is on the northwest side of the Tampa Bay region. It's part of the region. We're in that suburban sprawl miasma that characterizes all Florida cities. And we're about 25 miles as the crow flies from Tampa, basically from downtown Tampa, and probably 15 to 20 miles from Clearwater and 30 miles from St. Pete. So we're And we're right on the Gulf. We have a river that runs right through town that river miles from where we are out to the Gulf is maybe five river miles. So you could easily kayak and paddle board right out there or upstream pretty quickly you're into the Cypress freshwater wetlands. So we've got a lot of good nature around. Kevin K (01:39.516) Do you ever do that? Do you ever get out on a kayak or whatever and get out there on the river? Frank Starkey (01:43.089) Yeah, it's been a while. But if you go up to there's a preserve that the city owns that's up in the freshwater area. And if you're in there, you think you're in the Tarzan. A lot of the Tarzan movies and shows were filmed in Florida swamps and you feel like you're in a Tarzan movie. You can't see that you're in the middle of town. And if you go out to the coast, the barrier island and right where we are. They really start and go south from here. So from here on up through the big bend of the Panhandle in Florida, the coastline is all marshes and salt flats and grass wetlands. It's a much prettier coastline in my opinion than the more built -up barrier islands. But you can go out and kayak for days and days out in the coastal areas and see all kinds of wildlife and water life. So it's pretty cool. Kevin K (02:40.124) That's cool. That's really cool. Well, Frank and I have been talking about trying to do this for a while. We'd hoped to hook up in Cincinnati, but schedules just got in the way, as is typical for that event. But I really wanted to talk with you today, Frank, because you hit on a couple of my hot points, which is that you're an architect and a developer. Frank Starkey (02:51.313) you Kevin K (03:06.332) And I know as a designer that you also care a lot about the kind of issues that we talk about routinely within the world of new urbanism and urban design, which is, you know, creating beautiful walkable places. So I just think it'd be interesting. You know, I talked to a lot of people who come into the world of trying to be developers. You and I probably both talked to a lot of fellow architects who we try to encourage to be developers. Frank Starkey (03:06.481) Mm -hmm. Kevin K (03:33.948) And so it's fascinating to me how people come to that. So I wonder if we could start just a little bit by talking about like your path and where, you know, how you got to this point. You, did you grow up in Florida or were you in Texas? Is that right? Frank Starkey (03:51.761) Now I grew up in Florida. I went to college in Texas, but I grew up on a cattle ranch just east of here, in an area that's now called Odessa. It was a 16 ,000 acre, beef cattle ranch that our grandfather had bought in the 1930s. And we were about 20, 20 miles from downtown Tampa and Newport, Richie was our hometown because of the county we're in Pasco County. And so we came to, you know, church school. shopping was in Newport, Ritchie. But I also kind of had an orientation towards Tampa because we were sort of closer that direction. And then my extended family all lived in St. Petersburg. My parents had grown up there and then my dad grew up in Largo on a branch down there that his dad had before the one in Odessa. I... Kevin K (04:41.564) So it's like the rare species of old Florida people, right? So. Frank Starkey (04:45.361) Yeah. Yeah, but man, I have a weird, I've always come from a very mixed, I mean, just a very much kind of background, culturally, geographically, economically. My great grandparents were from, mostly from the upper Midwest. And so we kind of, and my great grandfather on my dad's side. was William Straub, who was the publisher of the St. Petersburg Times. But I later found out that he was instrumental in getting the city to hire John Nolan to do a plan for the remainder of St. Petersburg. He was instrumental in getting the city to buy up a mile of its waterfront to create a continuous waterfront park along the bay in downtown St. Petersburg, which is the crown jewel of the city in terms of civic space. So I kind of grew up and then that that kind of orientation towards parks. He also helped the County, Pinellas County establish a park system, which was one of the earliest ones in the country. And so I kind of this park orientation and public space and civic life and civic engagement was a strain through my whole childhood. You know, my whole is kind of a generational thing in our family. And so that's one thread and. Living in the country, we didn't have much in the way of neighbors. The area of Odessa in those days was pretty poor. So I rode the school bus with kids that had virtually nothing and went to school in the suburbs of Western Pasco, which was where the kids were mostly from the Midwest. Their grandparents had worked for Ford or GM or Chrysler and then they... moved to Florida and the grandkids, you know, the kids moved with them. And so those were the kids I grew up with. And so I, you know, I didn't feel like I grew up in the deep south. People, but I, but I was close enough to it that I understand it, but I don't consider myself a, you know, capital S southerner, my accent notwithstanding to the degree that a good friend of mine, Frank Starkey (07:07.793) I grew up in Plant City on the east side of Tampa, which is much more in the farming world part of Hillsborough County. And he was much more deep south than I was, even though we grew up, you know, 40 miles apart. So it's just a very different cultural setting. So I grew up with, you know, upper Midwest heritage who had been in St. Petersburg since 1899. And then, you know, poor kids, middle -class kids, and then eventually wealthier folks. So I just kind of had this really all over the place cultural background that's not nearly as simple as, I mean, all of Florida has a tapestry of, a patchwork of different kinds of cultural influences. South of I -10, north of I -10, you're in South Georgia or Alabama, but. the peninsula of Florida is very culturally mixed up. Kevin K (08:11.228) So the old canard, I guess, was that the west coast of Florida was populated by people who came from the Midwest and the east coast was from the Northeast. Does that hold true in your experience? Frank Starkey (08:22.129) Yeah, that does hold true, although there were a lot of New Yorkers in Boston, not so much New England, but still a lot of New Yorkers found their way across. So I grew up around a lot of New York Italian descent folks, as well as Midwesterners. So I, you know, it's a wonder I don't have a New York accent or a Michigan accent or a Southern accent, because those were the kind of the three, more about more, you know, Northern accents than. than Southern accents from immediately where I grew up. But yeah, I -75 goes to Detroit and that I -95 on the East Coast goes to New York. And so that means that has an impact. Kevin K (09:06.844) Did you ever know about the Kansas City connection to St. Pete then with J .C. Nichols down there in downtown St. Pete? Frank Starkey (09:17.329) And tell me about it. I mean, I, because Bruce Stevenson's book, I think touched on that because they, they had an APA convention down here back in the 1920s. Kevin K (09:20.54) Well, that's it. Kevin K (09:28.54) Yeah, J .C. Nichols who developed the Country Club Plaza here, starting really in the 19 -teens, later in his life, he was asked to, or he bought property in St. Petersburg, in or near the downtown area. And the whole concept was they were going to essentially build like another version of Country Club Plaza there in downtown St. Pete. Yeah. And so I think like a small portion of it got built down there. Frank Starkey (09:32.785) All right. Frank Starkey (09:51.665) Really? Kevin K (09:57.564) And then maybe the real estate deal fell apart or something like that. But there was, yeah, that was a big push at some point. Yeah. Yeah. Frank Starkey (10:03.633) or the Depression hit. Interesting. Now, I wasn't aware of that. I didn't know that he had bought and had plans to develop here. That's interesting. The other, St. Petersburg's, well, the Florida Land Bus was in 1926. So Florida real estate speculation really ended then, and then it didn't pick up again until after World War II. So that might have been the death of it. Kevin K (10:13.084) Yeah. Yeah. Kevin K (10:27.164) Yeah. Yeah. So you find yourself growing up on a ranch then, pretty much in Florida. What takes you to architecture? What takes you to architecture and then to Texas to go to architecture school? Frank Starkey (10:35.505) I'd have been becoming an architect. Frank Starkey (10:42.289) For whatever combination of reasons, one evening when I was in about fourth grade, I, dad recollected this years later. I asked dad at the dinner table, what do you call a person, what do you call a person who designs buildings? Not as a riddle, just, and he said, it's called an architect. And I said, well, that's what I want to be when I grow up. And I never had the sense to question that decision again. So. Kevin K (11:00.54) Yeah. Kevin K (11:09.276) That's how it sounds vaguely familiar. Frank Starkey (11:11.853) you So, you know, whether it was Legos and Lincoln Logs and the Brady Bunch. And when I was a kid, we had a cabin in North Carolina that dad had the shell built by this guy who had a lumber mill up there and he would build a shell for you for $5 ,000 or something. He built that out of green poplar wood. The whole thing was immediately warped and racked and sagged and did everything that. green wood will do, and we immediately put it in a building. But dad spent all of our vacation times up there finishing out the interior of that. So I was just around that construction. And dad was also being a counter rancher, and he knew welding. And he was always tinkering. And in addition to fixing things, he was also inventing implements to use on the ranch and things like that. So he just had a hand building. ethic that, you know, he just kind of had. So whatever made me decide I wanted to design buildings, as I grew up from that point on, I just was all about it. And so by the time I got to high school, I couldn't wait to get into working for an architect. And I was an intern for an architect in Newport, Ritchie, when I was in high school. And then I went to Rice University in Houston to go to architecture school. So after I, and I did my internship here, which is part of the program at Rice for the professional degree. I did that in New York City for Pay Cop, Read and Partners. And another ironic thing was I learned, I had a really great classical architecture history professor in college at Rice who in his summers led, he and his partner who was a art history professor also, a fine arts. Frank Starkey (13:10.289) They led an archaeological excavation outside Rome of a villa from the dated that basically dated a time period of about 600 years straddling the time of Christ. And I've spent the summer after my freshman year on that dig. So I had a had a really strong exposure to classical architecture and urbanism throughout my school. And when I worked for PAY, I worked on James Freed's projects. At that time, we were working on what became the Ronald Reagan building in Washington, D .C. It's the last big building in the federal triangle. And so it's a neoclassical exterior with a very modern interior. It's kind of like a spaceship wrapped inside a federal building. And the other project I worked on a little bit that year was the San Francisco Main Library, which is in the Civic Center right down in the Civic Center of Francisco with the City Hall and the old library. The new library is a mirror of it that's a neoclassical facade on, well, two wings of a neoclassical facade that face the Civic Center side. And then on the backside, which faces Market Street, there's a much more modern interpretation of that commercial core district facing along Market Street. So I worked on these buildings with Sirius that took, you know, this was at the end of the Pomo era of the 80s when everybody was making fun of classical architecture in, the architects were having fun with it or making fun of it, however you look at it. And Fried was taking it more seriously. It was still a updated take on neoclassical architecture. in some of the details, but it was really a fascinating exposure to the actual practice of designing classical buildings, working for one of the most famously modernist firms in the world. So. Kevin K (15:21.628) Yeah, no doubt. No doubt. Yeah. That's pretty wild. Was rice, I mean, we're about the same age, was rice kind of like most architecture schools, generally speaking, in their emphasis on looking at modernist design as the holy grail that you must pursue? Frank Starkey (15:28.433) Mm -hmm. Frank Starkey (15:38.769) Yeah, interestingly, like my childhood and the cultural mix that I described earlier, Rice was sort of in this period at that time where it was between deans. There was a series of, it's too long a story to explain here, but the previous dean who had been there for 15 years or something, O. Jack Mitchell, announced his retirement the day I started classes. And... So he was a lame duck. And then it was, you know, we basically went through a series of searches, deans, dean passed away, interim dean search, a new dean, and then he resigned. So the whole time I was in college, we really didn't have a dean. And the faculty that Mitchell had built was very, I'd say ecumenical. They kind of, we had some diehard theoretical postmodernists and we had. At the other end of the spectrum, we had a guy who did a lot of real estate development who was super practical and we always made fun of him for caring about mundane things like budgets. And I know he was, I made him a laughing stock, which I wish I'd taken more of his classes. But anyway, and then a really good core faculty who had a real sense of, and real care about urban design and. Kevin K (16:46.428) Well, yeah, exactly. Frank Starkey (17:04.401) My sophomore class field trip was to Paris and we did studies of, you know, in groups, each of us studied at Urban Plus. So I really had a strong urban design and contextual sensibility through my architecture class, all my architecture classes. In the background, there was this whole drum beat of postmodernist, post structuralism and deconstructivism. that was going on. I never caught into that. It always just seemed like anything that requires that much intellectual gymnastics is probably just kind of b******t. And it also, I was involved with campus ministries and fellowship of Christian athletes and church. And so I had a sense of mission and doing good in the world. And it also just, it just didn't work with that either. So I didn't really go in for that stuff, but the urban design stuff really did stick with me. And then the classical architecture and Vignoli, which I mentioned to you the other day, that really did kind of stick to me as a methodology. Kevin K (18:29.436) Man, I went for it hook line and sinker, man. It was, yeah. Yeah. I mean, I thought deconstructivism was like the coolest thing at that time period. And I bought the whole program for some period of time. And frankly, until I ran across some of Andreas's writings and then started learning about seaside. And that's really what kind of broke it open for me that I started to. Frank Starkey (18:32.433) Really? Frank Starkey (18:40.465) -huh. Frank Starkey (18:52.273) Mm -hmm. Kevin K (18:58.556) see things a little bit differently and all, but I, yeah, I was, I was in deconstructivism was funny because you could just kind of do anything and you know, you could call anything a building basically. Yeah. Frank Starkey (19:07.537) Yeah. Yeah, yeah, the author is dead long live the text was the, and so you could just, yeah. And to me, it was just pulling, it was just pulling stuff out of your butt and I just. Kevin K (19:22.636) totally. Yeah. Yeah. It was all b******t, but it was, I guess, fun for a 19 or 20 year old for a little while. So, all right. So fast forward then, did you come back to Florida then pretty much right after school or? Yeah. Frank Starkey (19:25.809) Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Frank Starkey (19:38.929) Yeah, I did a gap year after college and then ended up in Austin for another year and then came back to work with my brother. So by that time, we had seen, because of where the ranch is situated, it's sort of in the crosshairs of growth patterns coming from Tampa to the south and Clearwater to the southwest. and Newport -Ritchie from the west. So it was, the growth was coming from, at us from two directions. Granddad and you know, this 16 ,000 acres that's 20 miles from downtown Tampa, as you can imagine in the 20th century is going up in value pretty dramatically from 1937 to 19, you know, to the late century. And in the early seventies, he started selling and donating land to the state for preservation. Kevin K (20:24.22) Mm -hmm. Frank Starkey (20:36.177) and so we had, you know, again, that whole park ethic, and the, so we were selling, kind of selling the Northern parts that were away from the development pattern, off. And it was partly for the state tax planning purposes and also just, but primarily to put the land into conservation. So there would be something left of native Florida for people to see in future generations. That was his. His goal. My brother had my brother six years older than me and had gone to University of Florida and gotten a finance degree. And he came back after college, which was when I was like my senior year in high school and started working for the granddad was still alive and he was working for the estate, helping with that planning. And granddad passed away while I was in college and we had the estate tax to deal with. And we ended up selling some more land to the state for conservation. And he also started learning the development. process. We knew that as much land as we could sell to the state as possible, we were not going to be able to sell at all and we were going to have to develop. Somebody was going to develop land on the ranch. And our family wanted to see that it was done in a way that was, you know, that we would be proud of that, that put together our, you know, our family goals for civic engagement, environmental preservation, and, you know, and also. It was the whole family's sole asset. So it's everybody's retirement fund and principally our parents and our cousins. So we have cousins who are half generation older than us. So we were accepting that development was inevitable and wanted to be more in control of it. So Trae had been talking to me for a while about coming back and working with him on the development stuff in the ranch. So that's what I decided to do in 1995. And the decision point for me, Kevin K (22:09.468) Yeah. Frank Starkey (22:34.449) was, you know, I had set up my career trajectory to become a consulting architect and design buildings for other people. And I realized that I had this opportunity to, you know, have a bigger imprint on developing a neighborhood that could perhaps set a pattern. By that time, I had become knowledgeable about new urbanism and what was going on at Seaside. And And at that point, I think some of the other projects were starting to come out of the ground. So this was 1995. So I was like, well, I, you know, I've got too much opportunity here. And, and with what, what I know and what I have to bring to the table, it just seems like the thing I'd need to do. So I came back and we started working on development on the southwestern corner of the ranch, which was sort of the direction that was the frontline for development. So in 1997, we held our charrette for what became Longleaf, which is a 568 acre traditional neighborhood development that we broke ground on in 1999. Our first residents moved in in 2000. And that was the first TND in Pasco County. And in my opinion, it was the last TND in Pasco County. Because the county loved it so much that they... Kevin K (24:00.38) You Frank Starkey (24:04.721) passed the TND standards ordinance, which it would never comply with and that no other developers ever wanted to do. And so nobody really has. They've kind of just, it's been compromised with, right? That's a whole other story. Kevin K (24:20.14) Yeah. Well, that sounds, I mean, we may need to get into that at some point, but, so you started this in 2000 and really in earnest 2001 or so. And obviously there was a little, little bump in the economy right then, but I guess kind of more of a bump compared to what came later. So talk about like those first, maybe that first decade then, like what all did you build and how much of this were you actively involved in the design of? Frank Starkey (24:24.529) Okay. Frank Starkey (24:39.377) Yeah. Frank Starkey (24:49.425) It's fascinating looking back on it how compressed that time frame was because we sold we we developed the first of four neighborhoods In the first neighborhood we did in As I said 99 2000 and then we built the second neighborhood in 2002 2003 we sold the third and fourth neighborhoods in 2004 which You know, six years later, we look like geniuses. If we would have been, if we'd been real geniuses, we would have waited until 2006 to sell them. But we got out before the crash, obviously. So we did well there. We were, I was, you know, Trey and I, because we had a view of building a career in real estate development, we thought we should do everything. We should touch every aspect of the process ourselves at least once. So we knew how everything worked. But then we never scaled up our operation big enough to hire people to fill in those specialties for us. So we really both kind of ended up doing a whole lot of the work ourselves. So our master, our designer was Jeffrey Farrell, who did the the overall plan for Longleaf. And he wrote the design code, but we collaborated on all that very closely, because I knew enough about what urbanism was and architecture. And so I administered that design code with our builders. He detailed out the first neighborhood. He and I detailed out the second neighborhood. collaboratively or sort of a 50 -50. And you know what I mean by detailed out, just, you know, you take a schematic plan and then you have to put it into CAD and get it, get to real dimensions and deal with wetland lines and drainage and all that stuff. You get, s**t gets real about, you know, curbs and things like that. So that kind of, those details. And the third neighborhood I detailed out, but we sold it, but the developer who bought it built it out according to what I had done. So I was... Frank Starkey (27:15.281) very involved with the planning side of it. And of course I had been involved with the entitlements and then I administered the design code with all of our builders. So I was dealing with there and we had, we didn't have sophisticated builders. We didn't have custom, we weren't a custom home builder project. We were small local production builders. So these were builders who built 300 houses a year. We weren't dealing with. David weekly, you know, a national home builder who was doing nice stuff. Nor were we dealing with the 12, you know, you know, a year custom builders. So we didn't have much sophistication on the design side coming from our builders. So I did a lot of hand holding on the design of that. I always tell if you're a architect who's going to be your. Kevin K (27:46.716) Mm -hmm. Frank Starkey (28:13.169) is going to develop a T and D. I will tell you under no circumstances do what I did. Always hire somebody else to be the bad guy because as the developer you just can't look the home builder in the eye and say let this customer go. And so even though they're asking you to do something you shouldn't. So you need somebody who can be your heavy for that and it's not going to be you as the developer. But anyway, so I did that and And then I designed some of the common buildings and then had them. I wasn't licensed yet. And so I had those CDs done by somebody with a stamp. So I always said that I, you know, between the larger planning of the ranch and the strategy there, and I also got involved in community, you know, regional and county wide planning efforts and committees and things like that and planning council. So I kind of worked at the scale from the region to the doorknob. Which, you know, is fabulous as an architect because I've found all of those levels, I still do, I find all of those levels of design and planning fascinating. Kevin K (29:17.084) hehe Kevin K (29:30.78) So let's talk about the mechanics of being a land developer for a minute and how you did it. So you obviously own the land, and then you came up with the master plan. So then how many steps did you take? You took on the burden of entitling probably the whole project in phase by phase. And then were you also financing and building infrastructure as well, and then basically selling off finished land? Frank Starkey (29:36.433) Mm -hmm. Kevin K (29:59.26) finished parcels or finished lots to other developers or builders. Frank Starkey (30:04.177) Yeah, what we, so dad on the land free and clear, he contracted the land to us under a purchase and sale agreement whereby we would pay a release price when we sold a lot. So, you know, it's favorable inside family deal. We paid him a fair price, but it was a very favorable structure that allowed it, and he subordinated it to. to lending for, we had to borrow, we don't have cash as a family, we didn't, none of us have cashflow from, you know, we don't have some other operating company that spits off cashflow. So we had asset value, but no cashflow. So we had to borrow money to pay for infrastructure, I mean, for planning and entitlement costs and engineering. And so that was our first loan. And then we had, We set up a community development district, which is a special purpose taxing district that a lot of states have different versions of them in Florida. It's called a CDD. It's basically like a quasi -municipality that a developer can establish with permission from the county and state government to establish a district, which is then able to sell tax -free government -style bonds to finance infrastructure. So it's an expensive entity to create and then to maintain. But if you're financing a big enough chunk, which in those days was like $10 million, it became efficient to have the care and feeding of the district in order to get the cheaper money. So you could get cheaper bond money for financing infrastructure. You could not finance marketing or... specific lot specific things you could for example, you could finance drainage, but you couldn't finance still so some of the Terminology was a little bit You kind of had to do some creative workarounds, but basically our so but we it also meant you had to still have a source of capital for those things that the district would not finance so we had an outside Frank Starkey (32:28.497) Loan structure in addition to the CDD financing and that was how we financed the construction of the development and then sold the lots to individual home builders We had three builders under contract in our first phase and each of them was committed to a certain number of lots and they had enough capital access on their own to finance their the construction of their houses a lot of them would use their buyers financing and use do construction permanent loans to finance the vertical construction of the houses. But the builders had the ability to take down the lots. So that was the deal. I don't know if that structure is still done very much or if there were many builders in that scale that still do that in Florida or in this area. It seems like most of those builders got just crushed. in a great recession and never came back. I'm not really aware of any builders that are in that scale, in that size range anymore. I mean, if there are, there's maybe a dozen where there used to be 100. Kevin K (33:40.86) Yeah, so they either got smaller or a lot bigger basically. Frank Starkey (33:45.681) No, they mostly just flat got killed and just went out of business. And they may have resurrected themselves. Yeah, they may have resurrected a smaller or gone to work for somebody else or retired because a lot of them were older. Of the builders that we had, yeah, I think they probably did get smaller in fairness, but they were gone. And we were out of, as I said earlier, we were long out of long leaps. And the... Kevin K (33:47.836) Yeah. Frank Starkey (34:13.969) Crosland was the developer that bought the third and fourth neighborhoods and they didn't they brought in all new builders. So they brought in David weekly and inland, which was a larger regional builder. And then Morrison, I think one of the other large, larger builders who did rear loaded T and D project product. Kevin K (34:38.108) So how much heartburn was that for you and your family to go from this position where you're like asset rich but cash poor to and then all of a sudden you're taking on pretty large debt to do this development piece? I mean, what was that like? Frank Starkey (34:54.801) Well, you know, you just you don't know what you don't know when you're young and ambitious. So it was it was there. I did. There were some real Rolade's cheering moments. I think, as I recall, the most stressful times for us were before we started construction. And it was it was frankly, it was harder on Trey because he was he was starting a family at that time. So he had. He had literally more mouths to feed than I did. I was still single and so, and I didn't have the stresses on me that he did. And once we got under development, we weren't so much, you know, the stress level shifted to different, you know, kind of a different complexion. And, you know, fortunately when the recession hit, We were done with long, we didn't have, you know, we weren't sitting with longleaf hanging on us. So that was good. but we were in the midst of entitlements for the Starkey Ranch project, which was the remainder of the land that the family still had that had not been sold to the state. And we were taking that, there was about 2 ,500 acres. We were taking that through entitlements starting in 90, in 2005. And I would say that we got our, our entitlements. not our zoning, but we got our entitlements package approved, in essence, the day before the recession hit. So, so we had borrowed again, borrowed a lot of money to relatively a lot more money to pay for that. And that also involved the whole family, because that was the rest of the ranch that that the part that long leaf is on dad had owned individually, free and clear. The remainder of it. had been in granddad's estate and that went down to children and grandchildren. And so there were seven different owners of that. And we had spent some time in the early 2000s putting that together into a partnership, into one joint venture where everybody owned a pro rata share of the whole, but we had other shareholders to answer to. And so that was a whole other level of stress. Frank Starkey (37:16.913) due to the recession because our bank went, you know, did what all banks do and they called the loan even though we hadn't gone, we hadn't defaulted. We would have defaulted if they'd waited six months, but they blanked first and they sued us and we spanked them in essence, but we, at the end of the day, but it was two years of grinding through a lawsuit that was hideous and that was really the most unpleasant. Kevin K (37:29.82) Hahaha! Frank Starkey (37:46.257) level of stress, not because we were going to lose our houses, but because we were, it was just was acrimonious and not what we wanted to be doing. Plus you had the background of the whole world having ground to a halt. So fighting that out through the dark days of the recession was, that was pretty lousy way to spend a couple of years. Kevin K (38:12.284) Yeah, so then how did you all come out of that situation then? Frank Starkey (38:17.009) We ended in a settlement. The settlement, the worst part of the settlement to me was that we had to, long story, but some of the, we had retained ownership of downtown Longleaf with the commercial core, mixed use core of Longleaf. And that wasn't completed development yet. And because we had that collateralized on another loan with the same bank, we ended up having to cut that off as part of the settlement. So. we, you know, we had to, we amputated a finger, not a hand, but still it was, it was, you know, it was our pointer finger. So that was, that was hard, but, but we lived to fight another day, which again, you know, fortunately it's better to be lucky than good, right? We were, that makes us look like, you know, we did pretty well coming out of the recession. So after the recession and after getting that settled out, and there was a couple of other small pieces of land that we had, Kevin K (38:52.124) hehe Frank Starkey (39:15.121) collateralized to the bank that we handed over, but basically got them to walk away from pursuing us further. We got that worked out and then we had to then figure out how to sell the land. Our joint venture partner, which was to have been Crosland on developing the ranch, they had gone to pieces during the recession, so they weren't there anymore. And the only buyers at those coming out of that were big hedge funds and equity funds. And they were only, their only buyers were national home builders and the national home builders, even the ones like Pulte who had tiptoed into traditional neighborhood development product before the recession. They were like, nope, nope, nope, backing up, never doing that again. They're. Kevin K (40:10.46) Yeah. Yeah. Frank Starkey (40:12.593) So everything that we had about TND and our entitlements, they're like, get that s**t out of there. TND is a four letter word. We will not do that. So we kind of de -entitled a lot of our entitlements and cut it back to just a rudimentary neighborhood structure and interconnected streets and some mix of uses and negotiated to sell it to one of these hedge funds or investment funds. who developed it with a merchant developer and sold it to national home builders. And they pretty quickly undid what was left of our neighborhood structure and developed it in a pretty conventional fashion. They did a really nice job on it and it soldered a premium to everything around it. They did a really great job with their common area landscaping, but they gutted the town center. They didn't even do a good strip center in lieu of it. They just did a freestanding public and a bunch of out parcel pieces. They squandered any opportunity to create a real there out of the commercial areas. They did beautiful parks and trails and amenities centers, but they just didn't get doing a commercial town center. Kevin K (41:36.444) What years was that when they developed that piece? Frank Starkey (41:40.337) We sold it to them in 2012 and I guess they started construction in 13 or so and it was really selling out through 2020. They still got some commercial that they're building on. I don't know if they've got any residential that they're still, I mean, it's kind of, its peak was in the 17, 18, 19 range and it was one of the top projects in the country and certainly in the Bay Area. and got a lot of awards. And yeah, so I don't, I can't complain too much about it because it sounds like sour grapes, but basically they didn't, I always just tell people I'll take neither blame nor credit for what they did because it's just not at all what we, there's very little of it that is what we laid out. So because that, so we, having sold that in 2012, that left me and Trey to go do what we wanted to do. All of the, you know, the rest of the family for that matter. And, Trey was ready to hang it up on development for a while. So he kept a piece out of the blue out of the ranch and settlements and started the blueberry farm. And I went and decided to do in town, small scale development. Ultimately ended up in Newport, Ritchie back in my own hometown. And then and that's that's what I've been doing since basically since 2015. Kevin K (43:06.844) Yeah. So I'm curious about a couple of things. So with the completion of the sale of all that and the development of both Longleaf and Starkey Ranch, I guess I'm curious how your family felt about the results of all those. Were people happy, not happy with the results? Was there... I'm just kind of curious about that dynamic because it's an interesting thing with a family property. And then... I guess secondly, with you being somebody who carried more a certain set of ideals for development, what did you take away from that whole process, especially with Starkey Ranch and anything, any useful lessons for the future for others relative to an experience like that? Frank Starkey (43:38.321) Mm -hmm. Frank Starkey (43:56.209) Couple of thoughts. As far as the whole family goes, we were, well, our cousins don't live here and they were less engaged in it intellectually and just personally. The four of us kids had grown up here and this was our backyard. They had grown up in St. Pete and one of them lived in North Georgia. And so it was, they just weren't as... emotionally invested in it. Not to say they didn't care, but it just didn't, it wasn't their backyard that had been developed. And you know, and we all are proud that three quarters of the ranch of the 16 ,000 acres, over 13, almost 13 ,000 of it is in conservation land that will always be the way it was when we were kids. Except there are no fences, which is very disorienting, but anyway. It's still, you know, that's the way granddad saw it when he was young and it will always be that way. So that's, we're all excited about that. And we pay attention to that more than we do to what happened on development. I think even long leave the, what, you know, the, the people in the surrounding area think we're sellouts and, people who have lived here. for five years or 10 years or 15 years are still just shocked and dismayed by the rapid pace of development. Well, it was a rapid pace of development, but we've been seeing it coming for 130 years now as a family. And I mean, it's why we put land into conservation going back to the early 70s when granddad started selling that. What people can see is the part along State Road 54, which is the visible stuff. which 10 years ago was a lot of pastors with long views and pleasant looking cattle who were money losing proposition as a agricultural business. But people don't see that. They just thought, it's a pretty pasture land. And how can you turn that into houses? It's so, you greedy b******s. So yeah, we get a lot of flak still to this day. I mean, and I've got a. Kevin K (46:12.092) Yeah. Frank Starkey (46:17.425) Trey's wife is a county commissioner and she gets all kinds of grief for being corrupt because people see our names on everything and they're like, well, they must be corrupt. No, you've never met any less corrupt people. And so there's kind of public blowback to it. I've said what I've said, what I just told you about how the development of the ranch did not comport with what we envisioned for it. And I don't, I don't shy away from saying that. I don't go around banging a drum about it. cause what's, what's the point of that? And a lot of people might think I just sound like sour grapes, but it, you know, it's, we, I think we all had our ugly cry about the ranch at some point. I mean, I remember when we were, we, the first closings of the ranch were in 2012 and it was a phased state down, but you know, they, they take a chunk at a time. So we stayed in our office, which was the house that we had grown up in at the ranch headquarters, right where the cattle pens and the horse barn, the truck barn and the shop and all of the ranch operations were. And the day that, eventually we had to move everything out and all that, almost all of that got torn, all of it got torn down. I remember having, I went out and stood by a tree and cried my face off for a while. Kevin K (47:46.044) Yeah. Frank Starkey (47:46.673) You know, it still chokes me up to think about it. And we all did that. I mean, but it wasn't an overnight thing to us. Whereas if you lived in a subdivision in the area that, by the way, had been a cattle ranch 20 years ago, you didn't, you know, you're not building, you're not living in a land that was settled by the other colonists. It seemed shockingly fast, just like overnight. my God, all of a sudden they're, they're. They're scraping the dirt the grass off of that and you know three weeks later. There's houses going up It's just shocking and and really disorienting we'd said we had seen it coming literally our whole lives We always knew that was going to be the case. So it was there was going to be something there our Feelings about the what what what it was compared to what we would like it to have been or another You know, that's what we have to wrestle with but the fact that it's developed We always saw that coming and people don't really understand that until because you just, you know, because it just it's perceived so differently. If you just drive by and see it developed one day when it wasn't, then if you grow up with an aerial photograph on the wall of dad's office and you know, we just know that that's not always going to be that way. Kevin K (49:05.82) Yeah. Yeah. Well, let's talk for a minute about what you're doing now then with the stuff in Newport Ritchie and the smaller scale infill stuff. What was like the first one, after shifting gears and doing that, what was like the first project you took on on your own? Frank Starkey (49:25.561) Much more much more fun topic. Thank you for shifting gears. I should have let you do that sooner Kevin K (49:30.204) Yeah. Frank Starkey (49:33.617) The, so Newport Richey is a pre -war town that was laid out in 1911 by Wayne Stiles, who I'm starting to learn more about was a pretty cool town, kind of B -list town planner who worked with people like John Nolan and the Olmsted brothers and was contemporary to them. Got a very competent little city plan for a small town and it has building stock in the downtown. the main street and Grand Boulevard downtown that dates to the 1920s and to the 1950s and 60s, kind of about half and half. And so it always had these good urban bones, some decent building stock, nothing great. It was never a wealthy town, so it doesn't have big grand Victorian houses down at Boulevard or anything, but it's got some good characteristics. But it had economically just cratered, just for years and really decades of disinvestment. moving out to the suburbs. It wasn't white flight in the traditional sense, but it was economically, it was the same just reallocation of wealth from the historic city into the suburbs and leaving the city behind. So in 2015, there was a, so downtown Newport, which he has a little lake, a about a five acre really lovely little. city park, a riverfront, and the central business district is right next to it. And then there's a pink Mediterranean revival hotel building from 1926 in that park. It kind of ties it all together. It's all the same ingredients that downtown St. Petersburg has, just in miniature and in bad shape. And St. Petersburg, believe it or not, which is now the best city in Florida, was really down in heels for most of my childhood. The Vanoi Hotel, which is their big pink hotel, was a hulking, you know, it looked like something out of Detroit when I was a kid, broken out windows and chain link fence around it and weeds and looked like a haunted hotel. So the Hacienda was kind of in that shape almost. And Downtown was doing, was, you know, just kind of sitting there with some honky tonk bars and a lot of, you know, just kind of moribund. Frank Starkey (51:54.705) commercial space. The city had bought out the First Baptist Church, which overlooked that lake right downtown when the church decamped out to the suburbs like all the other capitals in town. Even God's capital moved out to the suburbs. And the city bought it and tore down the church buildings and put a for sale sign on it, put it out for RFP a couple times, got crickets in response. Because no self -respecting developer would look at downtown New Port Richey as a place to develop. And I looked at it and as Robert Davis and Andres 20 will point out, we developers and architects and urbanists, we live in the future. You know, our brains are in what can be, not what is here now. And you've heard Andres say that the present is a distortion field. So I wasn't bothered by the fact that the neighborhoods around it weren't the greatest neighborhoods. They weren't terrible. Kevin K (52:39.8) Yeah. Yeah. Frank Starkey (52:48.177) And I looked at it and said, well, this is a pretty good gas piece of property. You got through overlooking this nice lake. There's a park. There's a downtown right there. We can work with this. So I asked the city to put it out for an RFQ, which they did. And Eric Brown, your buddy and mine, and one of your former guests on the podcast recently, was the architect for the buildings. And Mike Watkins, whom you also know, was the planner. I had them come in and do a Charette to develop a design for an apartment project on that former church property. And we negotiated a deal with the city to buy that property and we were off and running. So that was the first project. Just announcing that and showing, you know, as people were, some people were rightly skeptical that it would just end up being another low income housing thing because. This is Newport Richey. It's an economic shithole. Why would anybody put anything nice here? And surely, surely, even if you think it's going to be luxury, or if you're just saying it, it's obviously just going to, there's no way it can end up being anything but low income housing. And, but a lot of other people were excited to see that somebody was putting some investment in town. And it just kind of started to change people's thinking. Then we took on a commercial building downtown that when I was a kid had been a, IGA grocery store where we did our grocery shopping and it had, fallen into, you know, another moribund state as an antique mall that just needed to be fixed up and, and refreshing them live and up or something new. So we bought that and, did a severe gut job on it. divided it up into five tenant spaces, brought in a natural grocery store that was in town, but in a much terrible location. And a new microbrewery, the first microbrewery in town, and a taco place, and a kayak paddleboard outfitter, and a CrossFit gym. Kind of a dream lineup of revitalizing. Yeah. The kayak place didn't last very long. Kevin K (55:04.636) It's like the perfect mix. Frank Starkey (55:11.665) They were pretty much pretty ahead of the market and also just work. It wasn't their core business. They just didn't really know how to do it right. And then the taco place ended up getting replaced. The CrossFit gym outgrew the box and went to a much bigger location. And then we replaced them with an axe throwing business, which is killing it. So no joke, no pun intended. And then the microbrewery is still there. natural food store is still there. And then in the paddle boarding space, we now have a makers, a craft market that is multiple vendors that are, you know, like cottage industry makers selling under one roof. And we have a new bar and hamburger place and the former chocolate place. And they're also doing really well. And so between those two projects, it really, and then, you know, it's other, businesses started opening, new businesses opened downtown that just kind of had a new approach. They weren't honky tonks, they weren't just kind of appealing to a kind of a has -been demographic. And I just started changing the attitude. And the most remarkable occurrence was at one point, and this was around 2018, I just noticed that the online chatter in the general discussion among locals about Newport Richey kind of flipped from overwhelmingly negative people just running down the town, just saying this place is terrible. You know, get out while you can. There's nothing but crack heads and, and prostitutes and you know, it's just terrible. And to, Hey, this place is pretty cool. It's getting better. There's, it's got a lot of potential. And the naysayers started getting shattered down by the people who were more optimistic and positive about the town. And it just kind of hit that Malcolm Gladwell tipping point pretty quickly. And the attitude of the town and the self -image of people in town just has been significantly different ever since then. And then that's, of course, paid dividends and more investment coming to downtown. Now you can't find a place to rent for retail downtown. Frank Starkey (57:38.641) We actually have the problem now that there's too much food and beverage and the market isn't growing enough because we've got to bring in customers from outside of the immediate area because it's just not densely populated enough town yet. But that's so that's kind of where things started in New Port Richey. Kevin K (57:56.604) That's really, that's a great story. It's kind of, it's so indicative of also like what Marty Anderson has talked about. Let's sort of like finding your farm and a place that you care about and working there and making it better. And that's really cool. When it came to all this, were you self -financing? Were you working with investors? How was that process? Frank Starkey (58:13.169) Yeah. Frank Starkey (58:22.321) On the central, which is our apartment and on the 5800 main, which is the project that had been the IGA store, I have a financial partner on that. Who's another local who had made done well for himself in banking and lived away and moved back and was wanting to invest, but also to do some invest locally in a way that helps, you know, give something back to his own town. And that was my attitude as well. So our, our. Capital has been him and me on those two projects. And then I've got two other buildings that, one other building that I have a co -owner on and then another building I own solely by myself. So I've got a total of four projects. And all of the projects that I have are within one, two, three blocks, four blocks of each other. I was, you know, you mentioned the farm. I was very intentional about farm. I said, okay, my farm is New Port Richey. My farm yard is downtown and my barn is our office, which was right in the middle of all that. And the so that's, you know, and then now Mike and I live three blocks from all of that stuff. So we have we our new townhouse is three blocks east of downtown. Since 2018, we lived in a house that was four blocks south of downtown. So all of it was walkable. And even when downtown had just a couple of restaurants that were mostly just diners, one place that was pretty decent for lunch and salads and things, and a couple of pretty mediocre to crappy bars. I have a lot of friends here now and my office is here. And I immediately realized this is the most luxurious lifestyle I have had since college because the ability to walk everywhere and just live your life on foot is luxurious. It's just delightful. And my best friend now lives well in our old house, lives a block away. And we got to be friends living in town here and living a block from each other. And we would just ride bikes. And there was a whole other crew of Kevin K (01:00:24.284) You Frank Starkey (01:00:49.041) the people we'd ride bikes up the river in the evenings and maybe stop for a beer or maybe not and just enjoy the town. He really showed me just kind of, I smacked myself in the forehead one day when he talked about how nice it is to ride up the river during the sunset. I was like, wow, you mean you can just enjoy living in these walkable places? Because I'd always spent so much time trying to build them that I didn't spend much time just... f*****g enjoyment. Kevin K (01:01:19.676) I know, I know. It's a crazy thing. It's like it shouldn't be like a rarity or anything like that. We wish it was available to everybody, but it's wild. That was the thing about living in Savannah and that was like the hard part about leaving Savannah was, I think for a lot of us who have our ideals about walkability and everything, you kind of go back and forth about, do I want to spend my time? Frank Starkey (01:01:30.257) Yeah. Frank Starkey (01:01:37.489) Yeah, I bet. Kevin K (01:01:48.38) you know, working real hard and trying to create this as much as, as I can and, and live in a certain place where I, I guess have the economic opportunity to do that. Or do you also maybe just say, yeah, at a certain point, screw it. I just want to live somewhere where I can be, you know, do the things that I talk about all the time. So. Frank Starkey (01:02:06.513) Yeah, exactly. And it is hard to live in a place that's already kicking butt and do the things to make a place kick butt. So. Kevin K (01:02:20.124) Yeah, and in so many of these places, the places that we admire, and if you didn't get in early, you can't afford it at a certain point anymore anyway. So it's kind of a crazy deal. So as an architect, then would the infill projects, I mean, I know you worked with Eric and Mike and some others, but do you do any sketching or work on any of these sort of, is it a collaborative deal or do you at this point just be like, well, Frank Starkey (01:02:28.369) Right. Kevin K (01:02:46.268) I'm going to be a good client and be kind of hands off and just help direct my architects. Frank Starkey (01:02:50.865) I try to, I'm trying very hard to just be a good client and direct my architects. I'll let you ask Eric on whether I'm a good client or not, but that's probably been the project where I have been the most, I've left the most to the architects to on the design side. On the, the one of the commercial building that I owned by myself was a, building that didn't have any windows, two stories right on one of our main streets on a corner. So two full facades with essentially no windows. And it needed new windows storefront and upstairs. So it basically just needed a whole facade because there was just a big windowless bunker. But it had existing structural columns or structural considerations for where I could put windows. And it ended up being a interesting, challenging facade composition project. Anyway, I designed that building. And also it was a double high space where the second floor was just a mezzanine. And we closed in the second floor to make it into a mixed use building. So that because it had always been a nightclub or restaurant and it was too big as being a story and a half to for that, for this market to support because the upstairs are just kind of. You know, just sucked. So I was like, this needs to just be a regular size restaurant on the ground floor and then offices above. So I did the architecture on that, including the build out for the restaurant. I had some help on that on the layout, but I did the design, interior design stuff on that. I wish I had, I love the facade design process. And that was a really fun project. And the result was, you know, it's, it's unusual because of the constraints that it had. So, but it's, I think it's a fun, it's a good result. but if I were doing more projects, I mean, I really feel like I don't do architecture every day. So I'm not, yeah, certainly I'm not going to do construction drawings because I don't have that, capability just cause I don't, I mean, I have the technical ability to do it. Frank Starkey (01:05:15.249) and I am now licensed, I could sign and seal it, but I don't want to. And I haven't signed and sealed anything yet. So my goal is to be more of a client than I am an architect. Kevin K (01:05:27.868) So in all this stuff and going back to even your initial work with Longleaf and others, you've obviously tried to create well -designed places and beautiful places. I know you said you had some thoughts kind of based on one of the other podcasts I had where we were going back and forth and talking about beauty in buildings and the value of that versus sort of utilitarian values as well. How have you tried to balance all that and really create? beauty and do you find it at conflict with also making real estate work? Frank Starkey (01:06:04.753) I don't find beauty in conflict with making real estate work at all. I think it's critical. I don't think that things have to be built expensively in order to be beautiful. And my comment to you in my email was about y 'all had had a discussion on this, your podcast before last. about and you had said you can't legislate beauty no code in the no amount of code in the world is going to result in beauty and I've always thought about that because I agree with you that codes by their nature don't result in beauty that that human love results in beauty I mean that's you know because that's a it's a it's a spiritual outcome not a I mean, it's an outcome of the spirit. I don't mean that metaphysical terms, just, but it's something that comes from a level of care that's not, that doesn't happen from just conformance. Kevin K (01:07:10.94) Yeah, it's a value you bring to a project basically. It's something you really care to do. Yeah. Frank Starkey (01:07:16.529) Yes, that said, the American Vignoli and other handbooks that were used by builders, not by architects, but by people who were just building buildings and designing them, designing and building buildings by hand in the 1800s and early 1900s. resulted in scads of what we consider beautiful buildings with a capital B because it codified, maybe not in a sense of regulation, but in a sense of aspiration and guidance. It codified a way to arrive at competence with beautiful principles underlying it. And I wonder, it's... It's a hypothesis. I've not proved it or even set out to prove it. But if you could require that people follow the American Vignole as an example, or something else like that, where the principles of proportion are codified and they're followable, then I think you probably would still have to have some coaching. But I think you would get a whole lot closer than you can in the, because it's more like a playbook than it is a rule book for producing a competent design. Competent in the classical sense. Kevin K (01:08:54.556) Yeah. Yeah. Kevin K (01:09:02.236) Yeah, I think that's fair. It's more like coaching people about people who care. If you want to do good things, here are simple rules and patterns to follow that are not going to get you the Parthenon necessarily, but they're going to get you certainly at a minimum like a B building, like a B or a B minus building if you follow these rules. And if you do them really well and execute the details well, you could end up with an A plus building. Yeah. Frank Starkey (01:09:34.641) Yeah. Yeah, and it's something that McKim, Mead, and White can follow that and come up with something spectacular. But the same underlying principles are in every garden variety inline building on a street. Because individual urban buildings and places that we love are individually not spectacular. It's the accumulation of be buildings that are singing in the same key that makes a good chorus. Not everything can be a soloist anyway. Kevin K (01:10:11.996) And certainly, a lot of the people who produced the buildings in that era that you described, late 19th, early 20th century, I mean, there were a whole lot of just illiterate immigrants to the United States, ones who were building all that. And they didn't need 200 pages of construction drawings to follow it, but they did have patterns and illustrations and guides that they could follow. Frank Starkey (01:10:25.041) Yeah. Kevin K (01:10:42.46) and just some kind of basic standards. Yeah. Frank Starkey (01:10:43.217) And also a general cultural agreement on what looks good and what doesn't. And that's what I think you can't recreate from start, I mean, from scratch, because it's got to, that culture builds up and accumulates over decades and generations of practice. Kevin K (01:11:09.148) No doubt. Have you seen with the buildings that you have done in Newport, Richey, has there been other people who've looked at what you've done and tried to essentially say, kind of continue to raise the bar with good looking buildings? Frank Starkey (01:11:24.209) Unfortunately, I can't say that has happened yet. There hasn't been that much new construction in New Port Richey. And I don't, I can't think of any off the top of my head that have been done since we built the central, for example, which is really the only new ground up build. There's another apartment project and apartments and mixed use downtown, but it was designed in 2006 and then it was stalled and it finished about the same time we did, but it has nothing. you know, didn't follow others at all. We did have a lot of people. And this is something I would recommend, which I did accidentally. I didn't put really good drawings of the buildings into the public before they were built. I made a real now here's a blunder. There's a my blunder was I allowed the elevations of the buildings. to be the first thing that got into the public view because they were required as part of the permitting process. And an elevation drawing of a building is the architectural equivalent of a mugshot. It's representative and it's accurate, but it's accurate, but it's not representative. So it doesn't show you what a person looks like. It shows you just facts about their face. And so it shows you facts about a building, but not what it's gonna look like. So people saw the elevations. of what Eric could design, which were intentionally very simple rectangular boxes with regular, very competent, beautiful classical facades, but they looked really flat, they looked really boxy, and they looked terrible. They couldn't be at elevation, there's no depth on it. So people were like, holy s**t, of course he's building, I mean, they look like barracks. And so people lost their minds. I'm like, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So we quickly put together some 3D renderings. based on a quick sketchup model, we illustrated the hell out of them with landscaping and showed what a view down the street would look like. And it was a much better view. And that's really how you perceive the buildings. And so people were like, OK, well, if it looks like that, I guess I won't oppose it so much. But they were still rightfully skeptical. And so I s

Fluent Fiction - Hungarian: The Tram Misadventure: Tales of Honesty and Direction Find the full episode transcript, vocabulary words, and more:fluentfiction.org/the-tram-misadventure-tales-of-honesty-and-direction Story Transcript:Hu: A pesti napsütésben László a villamosmegállóban toporgott.En: On a sunny day in Pest, László paced in the tram stop.Hu: Az Arany János utca sarok felől érkező 2-es villamost kereste tekintetével, de a szeme már nem olyan éles, mint régen.En: He was looking for the tram line 2 coming from the corner of Arany János Street, but his eyes were not as sharp as they used to be.Hu: Nagyot pislogva az idős férfi végre észrevett egy megálló közeledő villamost, amit aztán tévesen az ő járatának nézett.En: After blinking hard, the elderly man finally noticed a tram approaching the stop, which he mistakenly thought was his tram.Hu: Meggyőződve arról, hogy helyesen cselekszik, gyors léptekkel a villamos felé irányította botját.En: Convinced he was doing the right thing, he quickly directed his cane towards the tram.Hu: Egy helyiséget pásztázott a lyukasodó bőröndök, rongyos kalapok, beázott újságok között, és leült a legközelebbi üres helyre.En: Scanning the room filled with worn suitcases, tattered hats, and soggy newspapers, he sat down at the nearest empty seat.Hu: Nem tűnt fel neki, hogy a villamos nem a megszokott irányba hajtott, mert az életét a város zaján keresztül szemlélve megszokta, hogy néha némileg kicsúszik a helyéről a tájékozódásban.En: He didn't realize that the tram was not heading in the usual direction, as he had grown accustomed to navigating through the city's noise, sometimes slightly losing his way.Hu: Szilvia, a fiatal nő tiszta fehér kötényében, a villamos másik végén állt és jegyeket ellenőrzött.En: Silvia, the young woman in a clean white apron, stood at the other end of the tram checking tickets.Hu: Egy pilóta kalap ült a fején, mintha csak a tengerjáró csónakok hajóján dolgozna.En: She wore a pilot cap on her head, as if she were working on a cruise ship.Hu: Megszólította a járat utasait, majd meglátta az egyik utast, aki békényben babrált.En: She addressed the passengers on the tram, and then spotted one passenger fumbling about in confusion.Hu: Régóta ismerte már Lászlót, a villamos egyik rendszeres utasát.En: She had known László, one of the regular passengers on the tram, for a while.Hu: Úgy gondolta, a férfi talán rossz villamosra szállt és megkérdezte tőle: "László bácsi, hova tart ma?En: Thinking that the man may have boarded the wrong tram, she asked him, "László, where are you heading today?"Hu: "László csak huncutul nézett rá, mintha tudná, mit művelt, és azt mondta: "Pest felé, kedvesem.En: László just looked mischievously at her, as if he knew what he had done, and said, "Towards Pest, my dear.Hu: A Nagykörúton.En: Along the Grand Boulevard."Hu: " Szilvia pillanatok alatt felismerte a helyzetet.En: Silvia quickly realized the situation.Hu: Az öregúr félreértette a villamos számát és a rossz irányba indult el.En: The old man had misunderstood the tram number and had headed in the wrong direction.Hu: De hibáját nem volt hajlandó beismerni, drága férfiú a szívét és a lelkét az őszinteségre áldozta.En: But he was not willing to admit his mistake, sacrificing his heart and soul for honesty.Hu: Szilvia elegánsan végigmért, és megpróbálta meggyőzni László bácsit arról, hogy rossz villamosra szállt fel.En: Silvia gracefully assessed the situation and tried to convince László that he had boarded the wrong tram.Hu: Rajzolta neki a térképet, nevetve magyarázott, de László csak a fejét rázta, és a semmibe nézett.En: She drew him a map, explained with a smile, but László just shook his head and stared into space.Hu: Megállapodott abban, hogy már a tévija is rosszul mutatja az időjárást, nemhogy a villamosjáratok menetrendjét.En: They agreed that even his television showed the weather incorrectly, let alone the tram schedules.Hu: Szilvia napjának az a része örökre belé ivódott, amikor megtanulta, hogy nem lehet mindig rávenni az embereket arra, hogy változtassanak a véleményükön, még akkor sem, ha hibáztak.En: That moment forever imprinted on Silvia's day when she learned that you cannot always persuade people to change their minds, even when they are wrong.Hu: Az egész világ fordítva lehet, de ha valaki nem hajlandó elfogadni a hibáját, a város minden villamosa rossz irányba fog menni az ő szemében.En: The whole world could be turned upside down, but if someone is not willing to admit their mistake, every tram in the city will go in the wrong direction in their eyes.Hu: Akkor óta, ha az öregúr az utcai saroknál álldogál, Szilvia mindig duplán ellenőrzi, hogy a megfelelő irányba megy-e.En: Since then, whenever the old man stands on the street corner, Silvia always double-checks to make sure he is going in the right direction. Vocabulary Words:tram megálló: villamosmegállóLászló: Lászlótram vonal: villamosvonalArany János Street: Arany János utcasharp eyes: éles szemelderly man: idős férfiapproaching: közeledőmistakenly: tévesencane: botworn suitcases: lyukasodó bőröndöktattered hats: rongyos kalapoksoggy newspapers: beázott újságokusual direction: megszokott iránynoise: zajticket checking: jegyellenőrzéspilot cap: pilóta kalapcruise ship: tengerjáró hajófumbling: babrálásregular passengers: rendszeres utasokmisunderstood: félreértetthonesty: őszinteségassessed: végigmértconvince: meggyőzniadmit: beismernipersuade: rávennidouble-check: duplán ellenőriz

Think about the tremendous growth and learning that happens during the first five years of a child's life. These years are a foundation for future success, yet there's often a gap in resources and support.   Thankfully, in a world where government funding for early childhood education often falls short, there are still many out there advocating for comprehensive educational support.    This week on the podcast, I'm talking with Danielle Jordan, a 20-year educational leader who supports youth in the Chicago area. We discuss the challenge of expanding universal pre-K programs to include essential services for children aged zero to three years old and why early childhood education goes beyond mere babysitting, playing a pivotal role in developmental learning.   Everyone should be proactive advocates for increased funding and equitable access to quality education and Danielle shares how to empower parents through engagement and committees and highlights parents' role in supporting their child's educational journey.    About Danielle D. Jordan: Danielle D. Jordan, M.S., M.A. Ed., Director, oversees the implementation of our early childhood program at the Start Early's Educare Chicago school in the Grand Boulevard community. With more than 20 years of experience, Danielle supported early childhood teachers and support staff with planning, coordinating, and implementing education programs. Ms. Jordan holds several credentials, certifications and licensures in the field of Early Childhood Education along with a master's degree in Child and Family studies from Northern Illinois University and a master's degree in Early Childhood Education with an endorsement in Early Childhood Special Education from University of Illinois at Chicago. Danielle has held various positions within the early childhood development field. She continues to be an advocate for quality early childhood education.   Jump in the Conversation:   [1:17] - Where Danielle's journey began [3:59] - How Danielle's personal experience ignited her passion for early childhood development [5:45] - Understanding the importance of Head Start and its impact on families in need of assistance and support [10:06] - Wraparound services offered by Headstart  [16:13] - “Grow your own" approach [20:51] - Maintaining eligibility criteria and supporting families as they transition in and out of the program [23:46] - Challenges of finding affordable quality child care  [26:15] - The role of universities in training future educators and advocates for early childhood education [30:58] - Advocating for early childhood education [34:12] - Turbo Time [36:48] - A powerful message about understanding and respecting the rapid development of children aged zero to five [43:41] - Danielle's Magic Wand [45:21] - Maureen's Takeaways   Links & Resources   Email Maureen Maureen's TEDx: Changing My Mind to Change Our Schools The Education Evolution Facebook: Follow Education Evolution Twitter: Follow Education Evolution LinkedIn: Follow Education Evolution EdActive Collective Maureen's book: Creating Micro-Schools for Colorful Mismatched Kids Micro-school feature on Good Morning America The Micro-School Coalition Facebook: The Micro-School Coalition LEADPrep

Jess Rogers, Events Manager, BOULEVARDIADeepening a sense of community among Kansas Citians through the promotion of our city's unique flavors and culture and contributing to the vitality of the great MidwestAT BOULEVARDIA WE PROMOTE THE FOLLOWING PRINCIPLES:Providing opportunities to cultivate local partnerships; from fresh, local food elements to artisans, designers, vendors and business relationshipsEducation of the craft beer industry and the business and community impact these breweries deliverDeepening a sense of community among Kansas Citians through the promotion of our city's unique flavors and culture and contributing to the vitality of the great MidwestJESS ROGERSPart of planning committee since inceptionKC Artists Coalition - Promoting arts awareness and supporting the professional growth of artists.Charlotte Street Foundation - CharlotteStreet.orgCover of The Pitch? Sewing specialty? Soulshine & Bob Jovi jacketsRide2Boulevardia.com → Start/Finish is located south of Crown Center and the Boulevardia festival grounds - between 27th Terr and 29th St, and between McGee Trafficway and Gillham Rd. WHY FATHER'S DAY WEEKEND?By June, summer is starting to crank into full swing. While we're paying tribute to the things that make our nation great, our founding fathers also thought it a fine idea to tip their hats to all fathers. Because if there's anyone who would appreciate a relaxing holiday weekend the Boulevardia way, it's a dad.WHY GRAND BOULEVARD?Boulevardia draws inspiration from the community in which we gather to celebrate. In 2014, we had our humble beginning in the West Bottoms in the shadow of the 12th Street Bridge, 2017 The stockyards…Starting in 2022, we're thrilled to call Grand Boulevard – one of the most iconic thoroughfares in Kansas City – our home. WHY DO WE CHEERS TO ALL?There's already too much trouble and disagreement throughout the rest of the world, so far be it from us to add to any unrest. What makes us happy and our nation function most effectively is seeing people from all walks of life and of all ages, races, styles and personalities come together with the same motivations.ENDING: Festival-goers will enjoy craft beer and food samples. There is also live music from local, regional, and national bands. A full lineup is available online at boulevardia.com/lineup.Boulevardia is scheduled for June 16-17, 2023. Tickets and ticket packages are on sale and start around $40 per person.Boulevardia.com | Boulevardia.com/get-involved | Facebook @Boulevardia (spelled out) | Instagram, TikTok, Twitter: @BLVDIA | ABC PodcastFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/alwaysbecoolpodcastTwitter: https://twitter.com/thebobbykerrInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/alwaysbecoolpodcast/TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@thebobbykerrYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@alwaysbecoolSummit LendingFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/SummitLendingUSATwitter: https://twitter.com/SummitLendingUSInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/summitlendingusa/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/summitlendingkc/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/loantipskc

Mushroom experts Joey Bohler and Lexi Wroten join the VIE Speaks line-up to share the secret health benefits behind the nutrient-dense superfood. Joey found his passion for mushrooms at the Telluride Mushroom Festival in 2017. On the ride back to Florida, he researched as much as he could about mycology (the study of fungi). He then studied under Eric Myers of Myers Mushrooms in El Paso, Texas, where his passion further blossomed. In December 2017, Joey built his first “mushroom operation” in his garage. Business partner Alexis Wroten later joined the team, and Vale of Paradise now supplies many South Walton, Florida restaurants with premium mushrooms, including Farm & Fire and others owned by Chef Jim Shirley. They also attend the weekly farmers markets in Rosemary Beach, Niceville, Grand Boulevard, and Seaside and are building a new facility and mushroom farm. Their products include foraged mushrooms, mushroom grow kits, tinctures, and dehydrated mushroom jerky. Learn more about this superfood when you give this episode a listen.  LET'S CONNECT: Instagram: @viespeaks // @viemagazine YouTube: (@VIEtelevision | WATCH VIE Speaks) Website: viemagazine.com CONNECT WITH JOEY & LEXI: Instagram: @valeofparadisemushrooms Website: valeofparadisemushrooms.com A special thank you to Rose & Company for sponsoring today's episode. For sponsorship inquiries, please contact kelly@viemagazine.com and hailey@viemagazine.com.

We get down to business in the final hour of the show as we bring you live coverage from Grand Boulevard as we check in with Todd Leabo and Steven St. John. Also, Nick Leckey hangs out in studio as he talked with Nate about his Super Bowl parade experience and the best movie soundtracks. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On today's show it's a mix of multistory developments in Ferndale, Oak Park and Detroit to talk about with Robin Runyan of Urbanize Detroit. p.s. - Yes, we're aware of the Henry Ford Health $2.5 billion announcement over on Grand Boulevard and the Lodge. This was recorded before the surprise announcement this morning. More on that later this week. As always - feedback, dailydetroit - at - gmail - dot - com.

In local news, the town of Boone unveiled a new historical marker February 3rd. According to the Watauga Democrat, the historical marker which is placed in downtown Boone was created to honor the area's first post office: Councill's Store. The marker was placed at the intersection of Grand Boulevard and West King Street across from the Jones House, and the marker has been planned since February 2022. In state news, over 70 sea turtles from a North Carolina aquarium have been released into the sea. According to CBS17, the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island released exactly 72 turtles from their facility. The turtles were delivered to the U.S. Coast Guard Station at Fort Monroe and from there they were picked up so they could be released at sea. In national news, the 2023 Grammy Awards happened last night, and here are some of the notable highlights from the night. Puerto Rican rapper Bad Bunny opened the show, and following his performance later in the night, App State's Luke Combs performed on the awards show's stage for the first time. Beyoncé broke the record for now owning the most Grammy awards, Harry Style won the award for best album of the year for his album “Harry's House”, Lizzo won record of the year, and Bonnie Raitt won song of the year, all according to the New York Times. Today's weather is courtesy of Booneweather.com. Today is a sunny day with a high of 50 degrees and a low of 28.

Day 15 The Address: 2648 W Grand Blvd, Detroit, Michigan, Hitsville,USA The Story: We dare you to try and make a top 10 Motown favorites list. We dare you. You'd have to narrow down Stevie Wonder's entire catalog. You'd have to choose between solo Michael or The Jackson Five. You'd have to debate who was better: Lionel Richie, Marvin Gay, or Smokie Robinson. You'd have to make some seriously tough choices. There are just too many hits! We're talking iconic, era-defining, hits. What started on Grand Boulevard in Motor City is a legacy that has transformed the world, defined music as we know it today, and given us a list of classics so long that it's safe to say there will never be another influence as powerful as that of Hitsville, USA. Leave everything you think you know about this story behind. We're going deep into the crates for some trivia and shocking facts!

Welcome back to another dope episode! This time we are talking about Grand Boulevard and have some fun things to share about it! We stopped and had some fantastic food at Chicago's Home of Chicken & Waffles! The food was amazing and the story led us down a rabbit hole in search of more answers! Tune in and learn with us! Visit our website and check out our new interactive map to visit all the restaurants and cool sites we've featured on the podcast! BPositiveProd.com/77FlavorsChi Thank you to our partner, Choose Chicago! #chicaGOandKnow WATCH US ON YOUTUBE HERE! Follow us on IG: 77 Flavors of Chicago @77flavorschi Dario @super_dario_bro Sara @TamarHindi.s --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/77-flavors-of-chicago/support

The Grand Boulevard shoots like an arrow straight from the Obelisk of the Sun to the Great Pyramid of Thoth. Gorend, Vargr, Osric, and Avaricios know an entrance to the Halls can be found within the temple, but night is falling, and their first priority is rest. They make for the Inn of the Broken Head. The Halls of Arden Vul is by Richard Barton, Andreas Claren, and Joseph Browning, published by Expeditious Retreat Press. Purchase it here. Old School Essentials is a restatement of the Basic/Expert (B/X) rulesets of Dungeons & Dragons, originally published in 1981. Check it out at https://necroticgnome.com/. I use a fairly extensive list of house rules, culled from numerous luminary OSR sources. Find them, my Armor and Weapons List, and my Carousing Rules here. Grab some 3d6 DTL merchandise! https://www.redbubble.com/people/3d6DTL/shop If you'd like to not only listen to us, but also watch our ugly mugs, check out the episode on YouTube. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/3d6dtl/message

President of Brookfield Village Michael Garvey joins Jon Hansen on Your Money Matters. The two discuss concerts in the park and Grand Boulevard weekend performances. Michael tells us why businesses like operating in Brookfield. From Irish bars, wing pubs, and candy stores, Jon and Michael talk about the best-kept secrets of the village of Brookfield. […]

On this episode of VIE Speaks: Conversations with Heart & Soul podcast, host Lisa Marie Burwell, VIE's CEO/editor-in-chief, spoke with Dave Rauschkolb, a highly regarded entrepreneur who cultivated a culinary empire over thirty-five years in the works. Rauschkolb is the visionary behind some of Northwest Florida's most beloved eateries, including Bud & Alleys Restaurant (his first endeavor in the food service industry and now the longest established restaurant in Santa Rosa Beach). He is also the founder of other local favorites, including The Pizza Bar, The Taco Bar, and most recently, Black Bear Bread Co., which has locations in Grayton Beach, Grand Boulevard, and Seaside. An active community leader, he is deeply involved in local education through his position as the Vice President of the Seaside Foundation Board. In addition, he founded Hands Across the Sand, an initiative that protects the local marine ecosystems from oil drilling and encourages clean energy sourcing. Rauschkolb has boldly instituted shifts locally through his award-winning restaurants and nationally by acting on civic responsibility and promoting change. To connect with Rauschkolb, explore his respective platforms at budandalleys.com, handsacrossthesand.org, blackbearbreadco.com, and budandalleyspizzabar.com.

Midtown St. Louis is seeing big developments. But the Grand MetroLink Station functions as a car-centric “doughnut hole” in its center. Kim Cella of Citizens for Modern Transit and traffic engineer Chris Beard discuss the problems — and a new report urging improvements.

In other news: Quite a display last night in Chicago with the largest fireworks in the city's history; Police say the first violent death of the year happened in Grand Boulevard on the South Side; A Will County judge has agreed to hear convicted wife-killer Drew Peterson's motion to toss out his conviction; and much more.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In other news: Quite a display last night in Chicago with the largest fireworks in the city's history; Police say the first violent death of the year happened in Grand Boulevard on the South Side; A Will County judge has agreed to hear convicted wife-killer Drew Peterson's motion to toss out his conviction; and much more.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In other news: Quite a display last night in Chicago with the largest fireworks in the city's history; Police say the first violent death of the year happened in Grand Boulevard on the South Side; A Will County judge has agreed to hear convicted wife-killer Drew Peterson's motion to toss out his conviction; and much more.  See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Fans want baseball's caretakes to take care of the game they love, argues The Sporting News baseball writer Ryan Fagan, a stack of baseball cards nearby and a work stoppage all around. With Major League Baseball's lockout entering its second weekend, two baseball writers meet at a local St. Louis comic book shop to open some baseball cards and talk about the precarious spot the game and the card industry find themselves in, both on the brink on significant change, and possibly not for the better. Fagan joins St. Louis Post-Dispatch baseball writer and Best Podcast in Baseball host Derrick Goold to talk about the goals of the owners and players in the stalled negotiations for a new Collective Bargaining Agreement. The two writers discuss changes to the draft, to the on-field rules, and to the economy of baseball that could rise from a new CBA. They also discuss baseball cards -- best designs, favorite individual cards -- and the similarity between the game on the field and what's happening with wax packs as Topps, after 70 years of making cards, is on the verge of being replaced by Fanatics. This episode was recorded on location at Apotheosis Comics on Grand Boulevard in St. Louis. The Best Podcast in Baseball, sponsored by Closets by Design, is a production of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, StlToday.com, and Derrick Goold. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

LUCK NUMBER 7! Today's episode features yogi-preneurs MJ & Bentley Jackson from Sculpt Studio! In this episode we talk about the business side of yoga as well as how yoga can be used to treat asthma & panic attacks… with some details bout my near-death experience with respiratory alkalosis. Believe me, yoga can LITERALLY heal and change people's lives. What an AMAZING & REWARDING business to be involved in! In this episode we also celebrate Sculpt Studio's recognition as 2021's BEST OF EMERALD COAST for speciality fitness. In addition, MJ has just been named BRAND AMBASSADOR for Luluemon's Grand Boulevard location in Miramar Beach! This is their 1st year in operation and they're just getting started… Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts and Spotify by searching "SOWAL Creatives". Connect with MJ & Bentley by checking out their website and filling them here: www.sculptstudio30a.com  @sculptstudio30a Also, check out MJ's yoga playlists on Spotify! https://open.spotify.com/user/mike.jackson-us?si=bef53ba0ffe84c1f 

JFK sat down with Nathan Chen and Rep. Lamont Robinson to talk about democratic voting structures. Nathan Chen is building Free Agency, where startup and tech talent are represented. He is also an organizer for RadicalxChange NYC. Previously, he helped manage the portfolio of startups at ConsenSys . Lamont J. Robinson Jr. is an American insurance agent, educator, and politician who is a Democratic member of the Illinois House of Representatives for the 5th district. The Chicago-based district includes all or parts of the Near North Side, Chicago Loop, Near South Side, Douglas, Grand Boulevard, and Greater Grand Crossing, the venture arm of ConsenSys.

In Keys to Paradise, a memoir that melds story and essay, Mourad describes the aftermath of being swindled out of his life savings a few years after his move to Italy. In novel, Grand Boulevard, an affluent man discovers his teenage daughter performing witchcraft in their back yard while his neighbour, in a fit of grief over her dead son, runs outside where she encounters a homeless man who's come to "occupy" their street. In Do the Wrong Thing, Ava's new roommate comes into her room naked, and Ava waxes rhapsodically about binge eating. Story Listing: 00:00 Mourad Nachach - Key to Paradise - memoir excerpt. 12:00 Cindy Graves - Grand Boulevard - contemporary novel excerpt 21:00 Malcolm van Delst - Do the Wrong Thing - character driven, narrative novel excerpt - http://malcolmvandelst.com. Works in progress. Copyright remains with the authors. Image from: https://pixabay.com

Grand Boulevard is a tightly written contemporary novel about the homeless and the homed on Grand Boulevard. This week, we learn more about Bruce, in particular his divorce. We're introduced to his teenage daughter. We learn more about the man who collects Bruce's bottles. We learn that Bruce's neighbour, the novel's main narrator, fears the woman living in her flower bushes and that the death of her son, two years earlier, has strained her relationship with her husband. In Do the Wrong Thing, we get more of modern day Ava's relationship with Joe, her boyfriend. She talks about how she makes more money than him and how if affects their relationship. Story Listing: 00:00 Cindy - Grand Boulevard - contemporary novel excerpt. 07:54 Malcolm van Delst - Do the Wrong Thing - character driven, narrative novel excerpt - http://malcolmvandelst.com. Works in progress. Copyright remains with the authors. Join us on Monday nights in Vancouver: http://www.meetup.com/Vancouver-Writers-Group. Image from https://pixabay.com.

From the publisher: Kenneth Charles Springirth (born 1939) is a United States author, activist, politician, guest-speaker, photographer, and railroad historian. Detroit's Streetcar Heritage is Ken’s photographic essay of the Detroit, Michigan, streetcar system. Replacement of slow moving horsecar service began with the opening of an electric street railway by the Detroit Citizens Street Railway in 1892. By 1900, all of the Detroit streetcar systems were consolidated into the Detroit United Railway (DUR). Following voter approval, the City of Detroit purchased DUR in 1922, becoming the first large United States city to own and operate public transit under Detroit Department of Street Railways (DSR). Between 1921 and 1930, DSR purchased 781 Peter Witt type streetcars. Although DSR purchased 186 modern Presidents' Conference Committee (PCC) cars between 1945 and 1949, many streetcar lines were converted to bus operation. The last streetcar line on Woodward Avenue was converted to bus operation in 1956 with 183 PCC cars sold to Mexico City. Detroit's Streetcar Heritage documents the city's streetcar era plus scenes of the PCC cars in Mexico City, the Washington Boulevard Line which operated from 1976 to 2003, and the QLINE streetcar which opened in 2017 on Woodward Avenue linking Grand Boulevard with downtown Detroit. Martin’s interview with Robin Green was recorded on January 15, 2019.

This week we have five fantastic pieces. In Super Girl, Glenn reads 3 flash fiction pieces from a set of 5, each telling the POV of one character in a heart-wrenching tale of a young girl's rape. In Ian's Joella, the Fifth, a man who seemingly has it made, cannot admit to his childhood best friend that he's in love with her. In Cindy's Grand Boulevard, in a smoke-clogged dawn, a woman’s daily walk is interrupted by someone hiding in her rhododendron bush and a divorced property developer's reverie, by an old man rattling his shopping cart on the sidewalk. In Do the Wrong Thing, Posey teaches appearance-obsessed Ava to let go and dance even as Ava learns some ugly truths about Posey. Lastly, in Key to Paradise, "The Monster" has Mourad looking at everyone as sexual prey, threatening to destroy his burgeoning interpreter/translator career. We've included a bit of discussion around the texts, in part because our new mic makes it feasible. What do you think? Do you like hearing the comments? We think they're insightful and inspiring. We'll try to make them clearer in the future. Thanks to everyone who came out and wanted to read! We ran 3 critique groups last Monday. This was a first, as was having everyone who showed up reading! Thanks for your awesomeness and generous-ness! Lastly, please excuse the background noise. Along with the 3 critique groups, there was another event going on. Story Listing: 00:00 Glenn Mori - Super Girl - contemporary short story excerpt - saxophone at s h a w dot ca 10:00 Ian Rodriguez - Joella the Fifth - contemporary short story excerpt - http://ian-rodriguez.com 15:14 Cindy - Grand Boulevard - contemporary novel excerpt - clightbody13 at h o t m a i l d o t c o m 24:42 Malcolm van Delst - Do the Wrong Thing - character driven, narrative novel excerpt - http://malcolmvandelst.com. 34:16 Mourad Nachach - Key to Paradise - memoir excerpt. Works in progress. Copyright remains with the authors. Join us on Monday nights in Vancouver: http://www.meetup.com/Vancouver-Writers-Group. Image from https://pixabay.com.

We’d like to welcome you to the Bronzeville community.Looking to buy a Chicago home? Get a Full Home SearchSelling your Chicago home? Get a Free Home Price EvaluationWe’re standing here today in one of my listings in the Bronzeville community, which starts as far north as 26th Street and extends south as far as 48th Street. Bronzeville consists of the Douglas community as well as Grand Boulevard.There is a lot of elegance and history behind Bronzeville. For example, jazz musicians and famous music producers like Quincy Jones grew up here. That’s not to mention the location: Bronzeville is essentially smack-dab in the center between Lakeshore Drive and Guaranteed Rate Field, which is right off 35th Street on the other side of the Dan Ryan Expressway (not even a mile from here). It only takes about 15 minutes to get to the Downtown area, and the public transportation makes it very easy to get into the city of Chicago.There is a lot of elegance and history behind Bronzeville. ”There is a ton of new construction in the area, as well as residential and commercial properties. You’ll find plenty of great schools, restaurants, and shopping districts in the area—you just can’t beat the placement of this amazing community.Bronzeville is a great alternative for buyers from the northside or the loop area looking for a little more space for their families.The community has gone through a lot of changes over the years, and right now, it is booming. Home values are getting better and better each and every year, and it’s easy to find great opportunities here.If you have any additional questions or are looking to buy or sell a home in Bronzeville, please reach out to us. We’d love to help you take the next step toward your real estate goals.

Topsail State Park is one of the staples of Miramar Beach and Santa Rosa Beach, and I have a quick aerial tour of the area to show you today. With many lakes and walking trails to choose from, it’s a phenomenal place to explore. The Gulf frontage is untouched, and is surrounded by some of the most incredible resorts along our coastline. “Topsail State Park is a great place to enjoy everything our coastline has to offer.” Grand Boulevard is also close by, and it offers a variety of entertainment options. As a local, my own office building is located just five minutes away, and I can tell you that it’s easy to avoid the traffic most times of the year. Overall, it’s a great place to enjoy everything our coastline has to offer. To get the full aerial tour, watch this short video.

Host-Producer Paige Donner brings you Paris GOODfood+wine. ... If there was ever an episode of Paris GOODfood+wine that will make you want to book the next flight to Paris, it's this one. First up, we have the utterly charming and so very humble, Victoire de Taillac who is the co-owner, along with her husband, of Le Grand Cafe Tortoni. It's newly opened in the Upper Marais on rue Saintonge and here she gives us the very colorful backgrounder on why every schoolchild in France has already heard of Le Grand Cafe Tortoni. Then, we take a little intermission break and speak with a local Parisian celebrity, namely Olivier Giraud. He's the star performer of the one-man show, How To Become Parisian In One Hour. He's amused and delighted audiences since first performing his hour-long routine at the Theatre des Nouveautes in the Grand Boulevard district of Paris just about 8 years ago now. Lastly, we turn to the Parisian-by-way-of-Colombia young chef, Juan Arbalaez who was so inspired by lemons that he named his newest restaurant Limon. He'll tell us all about that here on the show. So, get ready for yet another enticing, appetizing, delicious and tempting episode of Paris GOODfood+wine. Music by MikeVekris 'Funk Me' provided by Freesoundtrack.com also Groovy Paris Jazz by BensoundMusic for Intro and Outro. Media Bookings, Hosting, VoiceOver: http://paigedoner.info Paris Food And Wine htp://parisfoodandwine.net Book your Perfect Pairings Food & Wine seminar today: ParisFoodAndWine.net/Events

What an honor to get this session at the 2017 30A Songwriter Festival main stage at Grand Boulevard. For fifty years, Kent DuChaine has traveled around the globe with "Leadbessie," his duct-taped 1934 National Steel Guitar. Over the decades, DuChaine has shared the stage with such music icons as Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Koko Taylor, B.B. King, Albert and Freddie King, Willie Dixon, Bukka White, Robert JR Lockwood, Mississippi Fred McDowell, Furry Lewis and Son House. In 1989, DuChaine teamed up with Johnny Shines, a man who spent more than three years on-the-road with the mythical Robert Johnson in the 1930s. Together, DuChaine and Shines recorded “Back to the Country,” which won the coveted WC Handy Award for "Best Country Blues Album." They were invited by the Smithsonian Institute to perform at the 25th Annual Festival of American Folklife, resulting in the Grammy-nominated, “Roots of Rhythm & Blues: A Tribute to the Robert Johnson Era.” www.kentduchaine.com

Betty Dravis is a retired newspaper publisher and career journalist who also hosted a Cable TV talk show. She is a celebrity interviewer and author of eight books, including this one, Six-Pack of Fear, and first in this series Six-Pack of Blood (both with Barbara Watkins). For a complete list of her literary works see the list at front of this book.   Dravis has won numerous awards from Stanford to the California State Assembly. Her two most recent awards are: The Fourth Annual Shorty Awards, No. 18 in Authors; Top 20 in Women's Fiction 2011 from Heart Press (for 1106 Grand Boulevard). Dravis also wrote three short stories that were consistent best-sellers in the Amazon Shorts program and had short stories published in the anthologies Every Child is Entitled to Innocence, Sweet Sunshine, and Just Our Best Short Stories 2005. She recently finished her first full-length horror/paranormal/horror book Evil Voices (unpublished at present) and is working on Betty Dravis Eyes, an eclectic collection of her short works.

A great session from Grand Boulevard during the 30A Songwriter Festival with local girl Kelsey Waters. Raised on 30A, Kelsey grew up in the music saturated orbit of a mother who loved to sing and a father who loved to listen. Kelsey moved to Nashville at twenty and quickly began making inroads on Music Row. She signed a publishing deal with Little Extra Music and now works with some of her songwriting idols, including Lori McKenna ("Girl Crush", "Humble & kind") & Tia Sillers ("I Hope You Dance", "There's Your Trouble", "Blue On Black”), building a growing catalog of songs that are both universal and reflective of her unique slant on life. Working on a new album, she debuted one of her songs entitled "Cool Cars" for us live in the 30A Radio airstream studios. Enjoy today's release of our latest SWF session with Kelsey Waters! Thanks to www.30acottages.com for your support of The 30A Show.

We kick off our series of live shows from the 30A Songwriters Festival from our airstream at Grand Boulevard. Hugh Mitchell is a singer and songwriter, on things like the 30A Sticker Song, and today performs one song his dad wrote. Special thanks to Coastal Insurance, YOLOBOARD, 30A Cottages, Stinky's Fish Camp, and Presonus. Thanks to www.30acottages.com for your support of The 30A Show.

The big fashion week on 30A is almost here! South Walton Fashion week once again brings high fashion to the beach, and this year's headliner is celebrity designer Christian Siriano. We get all the details from Jennifer Steel, with the Cultural Arts Alliance on this episode of The 30A Show, made possible by www.30acottages.com. Recorded live in the 30A Radio Airstream studios at Gulf Place, FL. About: South Walton Fashion Week is a large-scale, multi-day event on Northwest Florida’s Gulf Coast that celebrates high fashion by featuring national, regional and local designers, retail boutiques, emerging designers and models. Runway shows, trunk shows, parties and presentations will take place in beach neighborhoods throughout South Walton, including in venues at Grand Boulevard in Miramar Beach, 30Avenue in Inlet Beach, VIE headquarters in Grayton Beach, Caliza in Alys Beach, Silver Sands Premium Outlets, and more. www.swfw.org

Casi fifty-fifty. 15 propuestas musicales en el programa de esta semana, 8 de aquí y 7 foraneas. Contenidos diversos en esta edición del Sonidos y Sonados que comienza con The Rides, y, a continuación Joe Bonamassa, Jeff Healey, Caravana Sur, Grand Boulevard, Whisky Caravan, Colvin & Earle, Greg Laswell, Gaudea, The Lazy Lies, Wild Animals, […]

The 30A Locals Show goes fashion today! Growing up on the emerald coast provided plenty of inspiration for Cayce Collins. Her designs lend a touch of whimsy and sexy to today's coastal woman. One of this year's "Emerging Designers" at South Walton Fashion Week, catch her line Thursday night at Grand Boulevard. www.swfw.org

Azamat B invite Grand Boulevard