The State of Things

I worked from home today, and this being a payday as well, I had to make a run to our credit union branch on this end of town. That meant driving down Sand Lake to S. Orange Blossom Trail. What I saw was interesting. A lot of small businesses were closed along the short stretch of South OBT from Sand Lake to Orlando Central Parkway. I also passed this white elephant on Sand Lake and Kingspointe Parkway. I stopped by briefly on the way back to exercise the Panasonic 14.

The place is completely empty except for some little skin care business that had a sign up on one of the doors. I tried to go into the place, but the doors were locked.

A quick peek at the interior showed construction for two faux fountains that had been halted. I have no idea how long it's been here, but I doubt it ever had any businesses.

This is in contrast to the continuing construction on the east end of town where I work. Clearing of the land continues on both pieces of property near University and Quadrangle Blvd.

With construction on the 408/417 interchange as well as the new student apartment complex on Alafaya near UCF it looks like business is picking up, at least for construction workers. But there's still a lot of small business empty store fronts all around Orlando, and it looks like they're continuing to increase.