I can't believe it. After months of repeatedly digging up my street and patching (but not repaving), they are finally repaving albeit one lane at a time so as not to disrupt traffic too much. I can only hope that the water main project that started a year ago and which was supposed to take six months but took longer, is finally complete. I worry that in this city, digging up streets by the various utilities is a game. Perhaps they and the companies that eventually repave the streets are in on this together. "We dig - you pave". Even many streets or sections of streets not dug up recently are in really bad shape. When I worked in the Embarcadero Center I used to hate to cross Drumm Street from EC3 to EC4 because the street was so bumpy and uneven it made it difficult to walk that short distance.

Other news from the Lower Nob Hill and Polk Street regions: The new bar where the old Mayes Oyster House use to be seems to be nearing completion. Today they started removing the scaffolding. The outside was painted last week and if those are its final colors, it sure is colorful. I am told that it will be O'Reilly's Irish Bar. Is this what the street needs? Oh well, that is balanced somewhat by the construction of the new building for the First Congregational Church/United Church of Christ about a block away where Freed, Teller, & Freed as well as the Polk Rendezvous Club used to be. They are have been pouring a lot of concrete for the foundation but nothing else of note is visible so far. The church has moved its office across the street into the old Leland Hotel Building (now a Senior Center) pending the demolition of the structure now housing their office space. I wonder what they will do about the sanctuary space during the transition. Also, across the street, the last of the storefronts in the Leland Building has been leased to S.N.O.B. That is right, that is Sonoma Napa or Beyond Retail Wine Store and Tasting Bar. It is not open yet however.

Apparently the old Polk Rendezvous bar is still looking for a new home in the area. They have been denied a couple of available spaces in the area due to the nature of some of their clientele and I have it from a reliable source, that they don't want to clean up their act.

Downtown the Bloomingdale project is coming right along and is slated for an opening sometime in late 2006. I still don't think it is a good idea to add more movie screens so close to those already in the Metreon Center one half block away which is already struggling with vacancies. The Metreon has about 14 screens I believe plus the IMAX and Bloomie's will have about 6. Great, you can see movies A,B,C, etc. at Bloomie's or Metreon, whichever you prefer but will such an arrangement really help their respective bottom lines? Of course, Sony is not a good landlord. They raised the rent on Discovery Channel Store some outrageous amount which they could not afford and when the store tried to negotiate cutting their square footage in half in exchange for cutting the new rent in half, Sony said no deal, take it or leave it. So they left it. Now that space has sat empty for about two years and Sony is collecting NO rent on the space. Ha! Serves the greedy bastards right.

A similar situation exists in my neighborhood where there was an award winning Vietnamese restaurant on California Street near the Lumiere Theater which had its rent doubled. It could not afford it so it closed. That space has been empty and not collecting rent from anyone for over three years now. You would think that building owners would like to collect some sort of rent as opposed to none at all. It doesn't really make sense to me.

Oh well, c'est la guerre.