Last week, the manager of the shopping center where my store, Booknotes, is located had two pieces of news. The first was that his office would be moving off-site, as well as the medical scrubs store the office was located in. It didn't seem like a good idea for the manager to be moved to somewhere else, but I didn't have any say in that. It also seemed weird that a store would be making a second move in under a year, but that news didn't involve me at all. The second bit of news was that the parking lot of the center would be resurfaced that Friday and Saturday. About half of the lot would be worked on Friday, with the rest finished on Saturday. The Saturday part would be the one that would directly involve my store, as the spaces right in front of it would be cordoned off that day, preventing anyone from parking directly in front of the businesses. People would have to park at one end, and then they would walk down to wherever they needed to go.
This would be bad for business, so we decided to close the store for that day. I hated to take off two Saturdays in a row, as I had already taken the first Saturday off for my annual late summer/early fall shopping trip that I mentioned in last week's post, but there was no way to park that far away and carry all we needed to that far. So, I quickly started to make plans for the weekend. I changed my shopping schedule began planning for the day off. Saturdays are generally main grocery shopping days for me, so rescheduling was going to be a pain, especially having to plan until the following Tuesday.
Friday rolls around, and the parking lot is a mess. The west entrance is cordoned off, while the east entrance is down to one lane, and it is the more dangerous one where many wrecks have happened. Instead of parts of the lot closed off, almost the entire lot is out. The entire west end is roped off up to the spots in front of my store. This included the open furniture store, office supply store, and Amazon hub. Well, the last one is only partially open, but still. All of the spots in the center of the lot were cautioned off. Only the spots in front of the stores were available all the way down. Even the area where the gas station used to be was affected. The only other spot clear was the section in front of the old grocery store. I could barely make it down the narrow lane down to my store. I had to park in a spot for customers, it was so bad. Worse, some people brought a car to pick up some tech from the recently closed scrubs store, and they blocked off a few spots for a few minutes. Later, some other people came by to the same place to get some plastic bag barely containing anything. Both could have parked behind the center to pick this stuff up. All day, customers and deliveries had to wind their way in and out, some in reverse, just to come to the stores.
I almost changed my mind to come in Saturday, since it appeared that my section of the lot would be done by them, but I stayed home instead.
On Monday, I came in and noticed that the lot was done. Everything had the new surfacing, and the lines were all painted in. Even some of the curbs had been painted. There were more handicapped spots, and even a dedicated spot for one store owner who had a recharger installed. The only part not done? The spot in front of the grocery store. Twenty percent of the entire lot was untouched. It doesn't make any sense not to resurface the one part of the lot not in use. Except, we heard some news. See, the hospital who bought the center a year ago, said that they were going to convert the grocery store to a day care center. Apparently, those plans fell through, and it now won't happen. The same thing happened the last time they said they were making a day care center. Now, there is no telling what the hospital will do with the space, although there are plenty of rumors.
And none of them are good.
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