Arkansas Blog

That's great, but when will Lou Schickel and the City Traffic brain trust figure out how to remove the orange barrels from what WAS to be the main entrance to this high-end strip mall?

May 16??? They've had the "Opening Soon" signs up since before Christmas. I think a more accurate sign would have been "Opening Sometime"

Wasn't Wild Oats (or whatever they are now) supposed to go into the new shopping center across from Park Plaza? The Lewis and Clark store is another one in that same center that has been "opening soon" since last November. Anybody know why they can't seem to open the doors on what must be some costly empty retail space? I'm sure the neighbors are less than pleased about the anchors not actually being filled. Means lots less foot traffic for them.

Calmwriter: It was announced somewhere (probably Max's blog) that the Wild Oats move to Park Plaza vicinity has been canceled after problems with the chain being absorbed by that other big national natural foods chain.

Calm, you must have missed the press release. When Wild Oats got bought out recently, they abandoned thier plans to move to Midtown.

I'll stick this here because it doesn't cost anything.

Doug Smith has info on use of the term "toboggan" in his recent column. In my family, too, we've always called a sock hat a toboggan.

Doug says, "how the word evolved from 'sled' to 'cap' on its way south remains a mystery..."

I've always assumed it's because the sock hat is the cap of choice for toboggan riders, since it won't blow off in the windy downhill run.

No doubt somebody got the sled and the sledder's hat mixed up somewhere in the past, but it's not Arkansas' fault.

Or is that Arkansas'ess fault...

In the same column, I'd add that a little button nose is also considered cute, but a bug in a rug, while always snug, is never cute.

Does anyone know about their prices?

Except for the orange barrels it sounds like a store I'd like to visit. Their website makes it all look and sound nice.

I'm sure the Fresh Market will be swell for WLR dwellers, but as for me I'd rather be beat with a stick than run the Cantrell gauntlet just to buy some overpriced "high-quality persihables" and upscale foodstuffs, no matter how attractively the bait is dangled.

Besides, there's Terry's Finer Foods, a small but well-stocked specialty market, for us old-city folks.

The "entrance" where the orange barrels reside is not supposed to be an entrance at all. As I understand it from neighborhood newsletters, Schickel originally agreed to close the entrance to the shopping center that is directly across Cantrell from Southridge Drive in exchange for the neighborhood association not opposing his development (or something along those lines). Schickel was also supposed to landscape the land where the closed-off entrance lies to make it look all nice and pretty for the neighborhood association types who spend lots of time worrying about what grows in other people's yards.

Instead of following through on those agreements, Schickel has been trying to get the city to allow him to reopen the entrance, which explains the temporary nature of the orange barrels and the small strip of concrete blocking the entrance. Note that an additional stoplight was added to Cantrell to allow left-hand turns from the westbound lane about a block back to the east. That shopping center is accessible from that entrance and several others. Schickel does not really need the Southridge entrance, but he persists in his efforts to get it.

I went to a Fresh Market in Orlando and it was quite nice. The best thing it will add to the market are a lot of ready-made foods including quality salads and sandwiches. The stores outside of LR have a terrific array of wines but obviously in Arkansas that won't be an option.

This should provide a great sporting addition to the fierce Cantrell Road rush hour demolition derby with all those homebound Taylor Loop Road, The Ranch and Shinall Valley strivers looking to turn left to get a nice little Fresh Market tuna salad samwich on the way home from the bond boiler room.

For those who care about such things, a Whole Foods rep in Dallas told me that if our Wild Oats was important to LR, we needed to email Whole Foods and let them know that not only do we want a Whole Foods, we want it to move to Midtown as well. If they don't see community support for a new store, it ain't gonna happen.

Don't just stop with telling folks to contact Whole Foods... give them the url!
http://www.wholefoodsmarket.com/contact/contact.html

I think clicking my name will get you there too.