Rifle Maker Is Loving SC After Leaving CT

PTR Industries, a rifle manufacturer that left Connecticut for South Carolina, is getting a healthy dose of Southern hospitality.

“I have personally been able to get a very good feel from South Carolina, from the governor down to the local beat cops to your average citizen,” he said. “The welcoming has been tremendous. People on the street, cashiers at the gas station or the pizza place, or even TSA agents, they know who we are and they’re happy to have us. In Connecticut, we always felt like a dirty little secret. Down there, it’s very much the opposite.”

Looks like South Carolina is doing something right.

The Strange Development Story of the Original Ford Mustang

There's a really interesting back-story on the development of one of America's most iconic sports cars. We all know the original mustang. Seeing the prototypes and variations in the development stage is like looking at an alternate universe.

For instance, I never gave a serious thought to which direction the emblem faces. Can you see it right now in your mind's eye? Which way does the galloping horse face?

It faces left, like this:

That looks normal, right? Apparently, the horse was made to gallop to the left because it's "going West" like America did. Whatever, right? However, I'm so used to it that looking at it the other way is strangely disturbing:

That top picture just looks wrong, doesn't it? I'm now trying to figure out why that the left-facing horse looks normal, since we Westerners read everything left to right. All I know is that right facing horse really creeps me out. Anyone else feel like that?

If you think that's weird, check out the article to see how really weird the Mustang might have been with other variations.

Bull Street Developer Reveals Hints

The Greenville, SC based developer behind the Bull Street project has started revealing what the project will look like.

Bob Hughes - The man we are all counting on.

I'm not wild about a baseball stadium, but I'm cautiously optimistic about the project as a whole. This is the developer who is responsible for downtown Greenville being what it is today, as opposed to what it looked like in 1956.

If he can do something similar for Columbia, that would certainly be a welcome relief. What do you think?

Palmetto Compress Building Remains (For Now)

The big brouhaha over what to do with the Palmetto Compress Building is going to continue, since apparently, the preservationists have run the business developers away. Nice job, y'all. Way to run those Yankees off who are looking to invest money in a business here in Columbia.

For those of you who don't know, the Palmetto Compress Building is this building:

Palmetto Compress & Warehouse (Via The State)

The Compress & Warehouse sits at Devine and Pulaski, in downtown Columbia. Back in the day (the very early 1900's), it used to be a short term warehouse for bales of cotton on their way to textile mills. Once the textile mills went under, the warehouse kinda lost it's usefulness.

The real estate that this building sits on is some pretty good real estate for commercial development. It's located near the University of South Carolina's campus and is near a major thoroughfare (Blossom and Huger). The problem is that storing things in an old warehouse isn't exactly a great way to make money. I'm sure the property taxes on this real estate alone are pretty significant. Accordingly, the folks who own this building are thinking about getting out of the warehouse business and into something more profitable. As you may have guessed, that will likely require knocking down the building.

So, what's the problem? Well, there's a contingent of folks who want to preserve the warehouse. I guess they're nostalgic for the old textile mill days of Columbia, or they like brick buildings with little windows, or maybe they just like warehouses. In any event, there's a group of folks who don't want the building to go anywhere.

I kind of get that. It's a quaint old building, and it's a reminder of Columbia's past. That's cool. The other side of me thinks that it would be cool to get some new stuff in Columbia. Charleston and Greenville keep growing, expanding, renovating, and developing. What's Columbia done recently? I guess we've gotten a Whole Foods and....yeah, that's about it.

You may not have noticed, but the banks aren't exactly giving money out for speculative projects these days. And make no mistake, it would cost a boatload of money to "restore" this old building to a point where it would be fit for some sort of development if you want to keep the structure intact.

I know there are lots of people who want to save the building, but I don't see a whole lot of ideas on what do to with it. The people on the preservationist side seem stuck on the "This is a historic building so we must save it...because it is historic". argument. Look, y'all: It's an old warehouse that used to store cotton. It's not like George Washington used it as his headquarters.

Don't get me wrong. The best solution is to develop it in a way that makes money for the owners and preserves the building. However, the push to keep it because it's old isn't a very good argument. If you want to save the building, try and figure out how to make that profitable for everyone.