Mayberry's to close

I just found out today that downtown Washington will take another economic hit. Mayberry's restaurant is slated to close this weekend. The business has been listed for sale, but owner Brad Portenier said he would be closing the doors Saturday.
It's been a tough year for downtown, with several businesses closing. This is quite unusual compared to the last couple years where more businesses have opened then closed.
But I suppose this is the cycle of life in a small time. I just hope a buyer of the restaurant steps up because these are three big buildings that brought a lot of economic activity to downtown.

Hail hits southern Lincoln Township

A hail storm followed by "green snap" (which means the wind blew so hard it snapped the plants) hit crops in southern Lincoln Township last Thursday. Many fields were devastated by the weather occurrence, which is too bad considering much of the crop in the rest of the county looks amazing.

Blogvoid

Sorry I haven't been blogging much lately. We took a vacation to Minnesota and then a couple days of AAU track meets and now I'm struggling to get caught back up.
I am trying to track down a rumor of a guy wanting to put a new movie theater in Washington. That would be extremely exciting in my opinion. It would be nice to get a young crowd downtown on Friday and Saturday nights.

Weather

There's kind of a gully-washer occurring here in Washington right now, but my wife says the ground was barely wet at our house six miles due south of town during the first 20 minutes of rain here. She said it was pouring there now too.

One more commissioner candidate

Mike Uhlrich, Democrat from Washington, has filed for the Washington County Commission District 2 position. He is the fourth candidate to file for the seat. This also makes a rare primary race for both the Democrat and Republican parties for this position. Brad Owen and Mike Uhlrich will run for the Democratic nomination and Roger Otott and Kathryn Stigge will run for the Republican nomination.
I will publish all of the filings in next week's issue of the News. We ran out of space this week.

Too many downtown vacancies

There are a lot of buildings for sale in downtown Washington right now and I don't know what to think about it.
To the north, the former Kuhlmann building that is currently being used by Bradford Built is being offered for sale now that their expansion at the industrial park can handle the work they were doing downtown. Along C Street, the former Monty Law Office is empty. I don't know if it is for rent or sale.
On the west side of the square, the Schooky's Deli buildings are for sale.
On the south side, the building that held an American Family Insurance office for a while is for rent and the lot of the former Major Theatre is still empty. Along C Street, on the east side, the former laundromat is for sale, signs were recently put on the former Liquid Glass building that it is for sale, and the Longhorn building is for sale. On the west side, Mayberry's Restaurant is for sale, and the former Earhart Abstract and Parry dental office are both being used as residences.
I remember about a year and a half ago commenting that there was practically no commercial space available in downtown Washington. I don't know what happened since then, but there are too many vacancies surrounding us now and we ought to try to do something about it.

Restaurant auction

Just an update on the restaurant auction that took place in Washington on Saturday. The Longhorn building did not sell. There was one bid, but it did not meet the reserve so it didn't sell. The Schooky's Deli building was not part of the auction. Only the equipment was auctioned and it evidently went well.