One night, while watching a basketball game, I found myself sitting in front of a gentleman who was mightily disordered with the referees. In his opinion they were ignoring obvious infractions by the visiting team. Finally in a fit of pique he yelled: “Call something. Even if it’s wrong.”
While I am not feeling quite the same fevered passion it is time for the City of Sandy Springs to “do something” with the vacant Target property. Use it. Develop it. Sell it. But standing pat is no longer becoming.
It has been three years since the city assumed the building, and unlike wine, it is not going to get better while sitting idle. Neither is it a public display of vitalizing intellect.
The city did put out a recent request for ideas on where to locate a new city hall but the responses were sparse and wanting. I don’t want to seem too metaphysical here, but I believe powers beyond secular understanding are pointing in the direction of putting the vacant building to use. Or unloading it.
If indeed that part of town is going to be our epicenter, and that seems to be the consensus, then we are currently anchoring ourselves with a big empty building. And I don’t believe it can be considered incautious to call for such considering, once again, the building has been idle for several months.
A friend once told me there were two types of people. One was passionate about getting things done. This was the person that planned, set an agenda and got things moving. There was never a sense of waiting for the perfect moment to act; this person created their moments.
Then there are those, he lamented, who are passionate about being passionate. They have big ideas and grandiose plans. They talk a magnificent game, so much so that the talk camouflages a lack of action.
By the way, this is not aimed at just our mayor and city council. I concede they have been puzzling this for quite a time.
However, had I a nickel for every person who asked me when the city was going to “do something” with the Target I would be filing this dispatch from a tropical venue.
While I appreciate being seen by some as having the inside skinny on what’s happening around town, the same query to one’s representative on the city council would yield a better answer. And perchance persuade our elected officials that the citizenry is getting a tad restless over this big vacuous box anchoring our home town.
I will tell on myself – I am guilt of acquiring things and holding on to them because one unspecified day I will use them. That is how I ended up with half a dozen large jars of nuts and bolts left over from various projects. I would, no doubt, need them “some day” and didn’t want to waste money buying new ones. By my own inertia I was going to be able to retrofit the Eiffel Tower or end up on “Hoarders”.
Today’s wisdom is that if one is not moving forward, if they are standing still, then they are actually falling behind. So it’s past time we did something with that big box anchoring this corner of God’s little acre.
Use it. Develop it. Sell it. But let’s get out of reverse.
Jim Osterman has lived in Sandy Springs since 1962. He can be reached at jimosterman@rocketmail.com.
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