Will Jacksonville's Downtown Dreams Crumble? Discover the Hidden Challenges

[00:00:02] Mikes on Mike, a conversation about politics, government and Jacksonville. With 50-year opinionators Mike Hightower, Mike Tolbert, an award-winning broadcaster and long-time political observer, Mike Miller Hello everybody and welcome to another episode of Mike's on Mike. I'm Mike Miller.

[00:00:21] Mike Hightower is under the weather today so he is not joining us in the frame but we all hope that he feels better very quickly. Mike Tolbert of course is back at the farm and he's joining us online so it's going to be just him and me.

[00:00:33] No guests today, just the two of us jabbing away for 30 minutes and we'll glide you with us. We thank you very much for that. Of course, Mike's on Mike brought to you by the Jacksonville Historical Society, which is how is inside the Jacksonville History Center.

[00:00:47] And you know, a recent headline in the Jacksonville Daily Record caught our eye along with the eyes of a lot of other people at red. Rising costs sinking big projects in downtown Jacksonville.

[00:00:58] The article was written by David Record reporter Rick Anderson who is currently covering the JAA trial and we plan to have him on after that trial is over to talk more about all of this today though.

[00:01:09] We want to discuss what seems to be an alarming trend with downtown projects and started with beautiful renderings and high prices and now seems to be fading away because of increased construction costs and difficulties in obtaining large projects financing.

[00:01:24] Mr. Tolbert nice to have you with us. Thank you for bailing me out today and why don't you start it off. Well, you know Mike that article in the Daily Record was alarming. You were called and I think he was our tenth episode.

[00:01:40] We had Lori bore your own with us the CEO of the downtown investment authority. And after that interview, I think we all because of the rosy picture she painted. I think we all woke the way feeling pretty damn good about what's going on in downtown. Yep.

[00:01:58] And there are some things happening. I mean the beautiful friendship fountain just recently reopened my goodness gracious. You're the R.A. She's she. Yeah, it is beautiful and as she pointed out there are a lot of apartments going up at downtown.

[00:02:13] I think she said the numbers about to get 7500 or 10,000. I think we call. But here's here's something what she said. It's a good thing you're long distance. Can't throw things across the room.

[00:02:28] If you go back to what our role is and what we do from a redevelopment agency sample. I think we've accomplished a lot during the curry administration. So when I talk about the FIS building and that involved a Florida blue relocation of parking

[00:02:45] and then the construction of the new building, we've increased the number of residential units and the number of residents downtown from 2,000 to 7,500 in that period. If you look at what was being built back in 2012, it was 7, 11. It was new windows at Mocha.

[00:03:08] It was a renovation in the chamber. We're now spending private investment. It's spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year. I have about 1,000 residential units under construction right now in downtown all at the same time. How many again? 1,000. Wow. And it's interesting to just sit and watch.

[00:03:26] But that's in addition to the 7,500 residents. Correct. That will bring us to over 10,000 residents when those are come online. And they're all over downtown. There is the one Riverside project that's the old times union side. Our T is on the south bank.

[00:03:42] Doro is in the sports and entertainment district. Town homes in La Villa. Lofts at Cathedral that vests go over. I mean, they're all over. But that's how much momentum there is and how much is under construction right now. That's our core business.

[00:03:57] You know, having 10,000 housing units in downtown has been the goal since the delineat administration and progress really is being made. But to me, to see all of the fall of the the failing projects in that one article, which is very, very startling.

[00:04:14] If the day the idea is spending millions of dollars to incentivize lawyers construction projects, especially if they're failing. I wonder if that shouldn't be their core business. It looks like the construction of apartments has gotten a lot of momentum. It looks like it's on this way to success.

[00:04:34] So maybe they need to change their core business to go back to those big, big and welcome being in dollar projects. Well, and another thing on that, like that I'd like to bring up is the idea that and we talked about this with Laurie, of course.

[00:04:48] So much of the housing developments are going on on the South Bank and they're going on and riverside in an amendale all now part of the expanded CBD downtown business district, but it's not in the downtown core.

[00:05:01] We're not seeing that kind of residential development in the downtown core, which is something that as you pointed out, we in the delineat administration and subsequent administrations all were hoping would become the case. Is that then Europe's observation as well?

[00:05:17] Yeah, it has been and you know, one of the questions that Laurie he would said, the 3.9 million, I mean 3.9 square mile downtown in Jacksonville is a large larger than other downtowns, core downtowns. Yes.

[00:05:33] So I wonder if one of the fixes of all the beef, that's the reason we need the downtown to be that big and wide. Let's see if advantage of that. If we could clear that focus a little bit more, I think it would be important.

[00:05:45] Well, and I think people would have more of a sense of identity too because it's very hard for people and as we recall of course, she was talking about the boundaries of the downtown area being i95 to the south

[00:06:01] as well as to the west and north up to state main. Well, if you talk to people who are near that i95 on the south, they're going to say we don't consider ourselves to be part of downtown.

[00:06:15] We consider ourselves to be part of San Marco, or we consider ourselves to be part of riverside, but not they don't identify as being part of the downtown core. And I think that's a psychological issue too that Laurie and other city leaders need to take a look at.

[00:06:30] At least that that's my perspective. You know, do you know why Mike I don't? Do you know why they expanded the boundaries like they have? What the what was behind that? I don't.

[00:06:43] If I were to speculate, I would say it might be because of the incentive program in the way that that's shaped that there might be an easier way to sell some of those incentives. If one can categorize them as part of a downtown development,

[00:07:01] then if we were to say that we're doing incentive deals for areas like San Marco and Riverside, which already are I wouldn't say they're expensive, but they're nevertheless different from what the downtown core as we generally think of it is.

[00:07:18] I don't know though that's pure speculation on my part. Well you know the south bank is yeah, a good bit of development. Springfield is really going through it like great change after a lot. I don't think I don't know the the I as anything to do with that.

[00:07:33] I think it's more that the urban home stutters who moved into there could try to fix what was broken, make it a really nice place.

[00:07:41] You got Brooklyn, which is over with the times you knew you used to be in that area right in there with all that development. But you're right that does not do anything for the core of downtown.

[00:07:53] I mean I sit here and wonder why is it that after all this time two prime pieces of real estate that owned by the city in downtown three really one is the old landing site, which is now Riverfront Park.

[00:08:07] The others across the street at the old Courthouse site. Why do those pieces of property sit there without anything going on? I mean I don't riverfront Plaza and what if we're going to talk about this I think next week. I know Riverfront Plaza had a really beautiful plan.

[00:08:25] People want to park there. I think they were the most interested in making that a port. And in my store has turned that piece of grass into an important place in downtown without anything just having concerts and people come for activities.

[00:08:40] But I wonder if they had a great design. People really seem to like to design for that port. They were questioning about the sign or a statue or whatever it was. I don't know if people didn't like that.

[00:08:55] There was some questions about a building that was going to be on the edge, but people seemed to really like that plan and then all of a sudden that plan just went away. And now that they started talking about scaling that down to a playground on the river,

[00:09:12] which could be used not only for children but would be a part of resiliency for down there. And the rest are in the back part of the park. Well, all of a sudden the DIA is flipped that.

[00:09:26] So that the the the the playground is now in the back and the rest are on the riverfront. I mean it I don't get it and and. But we make plans and then we just blow them up or something.

[00:09:40] I don't know I don't know who changes them to last minute like that. This happened there to last minute. That's why we want to look into it next week.

[00:09:47] Yep, as you pointed out, Laurie Boyer said that after all of this time that proposed 44 story residential tower on the landing site. That's no longer around that's gone. The 22 story mixed use development on the courthouse site. Yeah, that's going to possibly go back on the market again.

[00:10:05] So I don't know why the intentions are all good and I think as we said in the opening. We understand that financing has become an issue. And a number of other things are but.

[00:10:19] You know, before we give out these contracts or we hire these developers, we're going to make sure that they're going to do what they say they're going to do and if not that there are tough enough clawbacks that would disson. You know, dissoncentivize them from.

[00:10:33] Bailing out or not having their ducks in a row before they get to financing or they get the approval from the city. I think that's all very important. Well, it's not all it's not all new big buildings too.

[00:10:42] If you look a little north of the river, you've got buildings like the. You know, the whole independent life building these are historic sites. I mean, these are really nice good buildings to ambassador hotel central bank building. And they're all into fall. They're there development agreements.

[00:10:58] And it looks like in quarter to that article we talked about that a lot of developers will start off loading these projects. So instead of new buildings being open restored buildings being open. And operating and people coming in and out.

[00:11:13] You've got some unfinished products of projects that are surrounded by construction fence. I mean, it's just this nonsense. And let's not forget, of course, the one that's probably the most high profile of all of them. And that's the lower street trio.

[00:11:31] And again, this project is stuck in limbo once again in limbo rather once again. All those as you pointed out were on the north bank, but let's go to the other side of the river where the river city brewing company operated there.

[00:11:44] That 22 story building with 410 residential units a waterfront restaurant, 535 space parking garage all on hold after the developer experienced a 30 million dollar increase in construction costs. Now, I can recall vividly when we rolled out the better Jacksonville plan and we came out with all those intersection improvements.

[00:12:06] You know, we we we tagged those at 25 million dollars of peace because we needed to put a number in there to go along with the legislation.

[00:12:15] We found out afterwards that they were going to cost more than 25 million dollars to do those, but there was enough in the kitty to be able to afford the increase costs or some of the people who are going to have a lot of money.

[00:12:27] And so, I don't know if you can see that there's more than 30 million dollars or some of those projects actually went below the line, which were the projects that we said we'd have enough money to do but have others on hold.

[00:12:37] In case those above the line fell through for one reason or another. But I don't understand why it is again that there are not those contingencies because of something like a 30 million dollar project that all of a sudden doesn't have the funding to complete.

[00:12:53] I don't I was going to say that's something you and I talked about as well and there are people who were saying that part of that issue has been the fault of the developer and that Steve Atkins.

[00:13:05] Because Steve didn't want to bring in any partners to help with the financing, not that he wanted to own them all himself. And he could have possibly found other developers. He would have had to give up a piece of the action, of course.

[00:13:17] But if he would have opened that up to venture capitalists out there, I think they'd be able to find whatever money they need you to do the trio. What do you think? I don't know. So I don't know. So I owe my figure.

[00:13:29] But I would hope so. Obviously what they've been doing and the way they've been working in any work and any old slides. You know, our good friend attorney Chris Han was recently on this week in Jacksonville show we can't judge this.

[00:13:45] And Chris Chris addressed this article itself and let's look at what he had to say. The plans to build a 44-story residential tower on the former landing site. That has now gone away. The plans to build a 22 story.

[00:14:00] Here's some of the renderings from that the former landing site. This one was showing now 22 story mixed use facility on the former courthouse site. That has now gone away.

[00:14:11] There were plans to revitalize some historic buildings in the west part of downtown. The old ambassador hotel, the independent life building. According to the DIA, those developers have now defaulted on their agreements with the downtown investment authority. There are several other projects that seem delayed.

[00:14:27] There was a plan to build a mixed use project on the site of the former River City Brewing Company on the South Bank. There's now an effort to try to forge a new agreement between the city of Jacksonville and those developers. The large street trio.

[00:14:40] Three historic buildings right in the core of downtown Jacksonville. That is also still on hold on negotiations take place.

[00:14:46] And we just learned in the last few days that the Museum of Science and History which is supposed to move from the South Bank to the North Bank has now asked for additional time to raise the money it needs to help facilitate that move.

[00:14:58] So I think this is not necessarily to some from what we're seeing in other places, but while there certainly has been some good news downtown such as the revitalization of friendship fountain.

[00:15:07] A lot of these development projects are either now going off the board or seem to be stuck at the moment. Something definitely to watch going forward.

[00:15:15] You know one of the things Chris said I've heard repeated a lot and they saying a lot of this way is due to the pandemic and to rising construction calls.

[00:15:28] And that is happening all across the country. Well for the front of it, I've googled recently completed downtown projects in Tampa and Orlando and I saw a different story down to on you from the Tampa Bay Times. Let me read this back in 2013 Jeff Venex that his water street Tampa project would develop in phases.

[00:15:49] It was about 28 acres downtown at the time. The next year it was up to 40 at a cost of more than $1 billion.

[00:15:58] Nine years later the footprint for the development and cobblestones more than 70 acres with some nine million square feet of space under development at a cost of 3.5 billion dollars.

[00:16:10] We're still in phase one, but we won't be much longer water street, which is a developer I think unveiled a handful of major components late in 2020 including two new residential towers and an office tower.

[00:16:24] A new public green wise market and a JW marriot hotel. Only a few big pieces of what developers considered to be water streets first phase have yet to open and those are new in completion. That's far different from what we're seeing here in Jacksonville and you know and then look at Orlando would not for having to about it or Orlando like body here.

[00:16:51] I don't know what to do with it. Let's not very good. Half of what you get old. Well anyhow, Orlando, the Orlando, you can see first of every very very very well. The Orlando thing was very much like the Tampa thing. It was very positive.

[00:17:16] I remember it said this despite the pandemic and other factors downtown Orlando is alive and well moving forward. A lot going on down there.

[00:17:30] So I guess what I'm at point is the notion that this is necessarily going on everywhere in the country might not be exactly actually and I wish somebody needs to look at that.

[00:17:40] No, but when you take a look at the certainly there are Orlando market. I can't say the same for Tampa, but when you look at the Orlando market. You can see why land speculators, developers and others want to become part of that story.

[00:17:54] It's not just the downtown area that Orlando is exploding. Look at the amount of money that Disney has already committed to investing once again investing in the Orlando area.

[00:18:04] Universal has invested. They've got a brand new park that's just open at universal and I think you're going to see the same from C world and not to distant future. Well people want to be part of a winner.

[00:18:14] And they view Orlando and that's of course a tric County area, Orange, I'll see you all in and.

[00:18:21] And, and, and, and, but, they see that is as, as, you know, all part of a major region of development and feel that everything can succeed as a result of that. Maybe that's one of the problems that we have is that we just.

[00:18:36] I used to say this before that when I worked at JTA for Mike Blaylock, who's the CEO at the time. Mike used to always like to say to people, what is Jacksonville want to be when it grows up?

[00:18:46] Well, we know what Orlando wanted to be when it grew up and they've done a pretty good job of doing it. Tampa with their with their river walk and with the baseball field and all of the other things that they've got going for them. They've got their own.

[00:19:00] Centric area, if you will of interest that I'm sure attracts a lot of developers maybe our problem here is that we just don't have that the identification is not there for people to be able to rally around or feel good about rallying around.

[00:19:14] And I know that's that's one thing that. One thing that Tampa has is is Jeff Bennett. He wants to Tampa Bay lightning and who was a partner. With Microsoft. I had a brain for it there for a minute. Yeah, he's Bill Gates.

[00:19:34] But they've been as invested at times in tons and tons of money. That's one thing that's happening down there. Maybe if you're far-front, they're shot con.

[00:19:42] But think about doing something like that in the core area and downtown is supposed to out by the football stadium with a four season so. They could change the dynamics down there very much.

[00:19:53] You know, I'm I'm wondering about a lot of things might the DIA was formed in 2012. It's predecessor as I'm so 18 years the predecessor was DDA correct? Wasn't that really the predecessor?

[00:20:10] Yeah, but the downtown investment authority was starting in 2012 and then Miss Bore your has been there for the last five years. Right. I'm wondering if it's time for a re-examination of all this. There we need to change. Do we need to change the leadership?

[00:20:29] Then we need to change the structure. Then we need to change the focus. It's best suggested I read by some folks that while we climb on what Jacksonville and the DIA concentrate on Laura Street between the Saint James Bill.

[00:20:48] And the Saint James Billings City Hall and the Saint John's River, the two saints. And they think about the buildings and the and what could be done in that includes the Laura Street trio. Why didn't the focus there?

[00:21:02] Should the focus be more on landscaping downtown and creating more livable downtown and becoming and the riverfront parks? Should we not worry so much about these damn big buildings that fail?

[00:21:17] We look they look pretty in the pictures and focus more on the small things it makes things better which may attract What the developers I don't know. I'll tell you this and it doesn't have perhaps a direct effect on downtown but it sure had an effect on me.

[00:21:35] I had to go out to the Saint John's Town Center, the other day to pick something up at a clothing store. And I got to tell you something. I thought I was in the middle of the Christmas shopping season.

[00:21:47] The place was jammed people walking around everywhere cars everywhere. The restaurant parking lots were full and I'm talking now about middle of the afternoon. I'd two or three at a car can be afternoon.

[00:21:59] The amount of residential development going on both at JTB as well as on Gate Parkway and the areas surrounding that. It's just exploding. To me they took a look once again at that central town center area, the concept of town center area and said,

[00:22:20] Do you know what this is going to explode in popularity? Let's build there. That's where we want to be as near where all that action is and how much of that siphoned off potential development.

[00:22:31] Closer to the downtown area because they didn't have and we don't have the same kinds of attracting companies and businesses that would make a developer again. Want to come to the downtown area? Now when they can go to the Saint John's Town Center.

[00:22:51] You got plenty of restaurants and plenty of things to be. It seems to be in downtown with the restaurants are coming back. I see that the Mexico place it was at the landing is coming back downtown on Bay Street. Yeah, but for the next time we close.

[00:23:06] And that was one of the major elements of this. You got some coming in some gold. I don't know. I don't even. It's I think I've been in around Jacksonville over 50 years.

[00:23:22] And the subject of downtown and downtown development and what to do about downtown is always been the topic of conversation. And and we there's some smart people in Jacksonville. And I'm not I'm not I don't I'm sure as to why we can't seem to get our act together.

[00:23:43] And we've been going one way and they fall out to play a fully other side. And I just don't know what the answer is to that. I don't either and you have to wonder about.

[00:23:53] That mentality that you're talking about here, and how that is going to impact major projects that are coming down the pipeline. I mean let's not forget the stadium deal to still hang in out there. We're supposed to hear something in the next couple of months.

[00:24:07] We hope about some framework that that will be put together that. So Weinstein is working out with the jack bars and their attorneys. But one thing we're not hearing about anymore and personally, and I think I can speak for you too, Mike.

[00:24:21] I'm happy about and that is that they don't seem to be talking as much about that entertainment center surrounding the stadium as they were once before. That was going to push that price up to over two billion dollars.

[00:24:34] With all of that and I heard a lot of people screaming and saying wait a minute. I don't want to you know we didn't want to do a lot.

[00:24:41] Jay when that was brought up and now you guys are just taking a lot of Jay and putting it on steroids and you're going to make it into even larger project.

[00:24:49] I don't see the I don't see the support for that and I think they're starting to figure that out pretty quickly here because nobody's talking about that. Now they're just talking about the stadium renovation.

[00:25:01] Well, there was also a story recently where councilman Bole and he's been working on the jail committee. I think he's chair of the jail committee. Said they cost for building a new jail could be as much as one point for being a dollars.

[00:25:17] So we might not be able to get any private development for buildings built in downtown but it's now it's like a lot of good much structure. That's for sure.

[00:25:29] Now that's truly that is truly the end. So what do we do about it this one is what is a city do about something like this are there other models that we can look at to say this is the same problem as they had on which talk Kansas and what this is what they did to turn it around.

[00:25:43] How does one turn something like that around it's massive it's not going to happen overnight. No and it needs momentum. I would think that if we're reading about the failure of these big building projects. Then others outside of Jacksonville also know about them maybe perspective developers.

[00:26:05] So it's got to create a poll. It's got to make you wonder it's kind of like I wouldn't have guessed it's kind of like I'm a really good football player.

[00:26:16] And I have choices where I can go play football. Do I want to go to a three and five and 10 team or do I want to go to a night and three team? Yeah, I mean you make your choices and I hope.

[00:26:31] I've got to believe that this is not good for our image or my humble building will minimal other things. Somebody asked me yesterday, well, what would it what would it take to get Taylor Swift to come to Jacksonville?

[00:26:43] I said the Jaguars would have to get Kelsey on the roster that's going to get her here. And then she'll come and watch a game or two.

[00:26:53] But that's the kind of attraction you need to bring the kinds of people here that you would want to have coming here. It's it's just it's almost mind boggling it is almost mind boggling.

[00:27:05] And there's a lot of other things that we're going to have time to talk about here maybe not on this show today, but one of the things that I know I want to get into.

[00:27:12] Like and I know next week we're going to hopefully get into some of the projects like the park that you talked about earlier. But our legislative session is starting to wind down.

[00:27:23] Every day you pick up the paper or look at the news and you see other measures that are falling by the wayside they're just not getting the juice to take them to the floor and try to get them past.

[00:27:32] And I'm going to be very interested to see how a lot of these projects many of which by the way that impact us on our region. How that's going to come out at the end of the day in tele-hassy.

[00:27:44] You'll question about it and you know let's talk about but let's talk about next week's show just a little bit because it's really it's really partner with what we just talked about today.

[00:27:56] And it's something that isn't treating to me and it goes back to Riverfront, the Riverfront part. And the changes down there between the restaurant going up on the water and the playground going from the water edge to the back of the park area.

[00:28:16] When Mayor Digan made her an orbital speech or swearing in speech. One of the things that she talked about resilience. Yes, and that was going to be front and center.

[00:28:30] Part of the issue one of the issue big issues with putting that restaurant on the river as opposed to a playground on the river is that it has all kind of resiliency issues.

[00:28:43] But the Mayor came out and endorsed movement moving the rest to the front and the chamber came out and endorsed moving the rest to the front.

[00:28:52] And that really seems to upset a lot of people, especially a lot of people who are considered to be important members of the Digan political base. And that's going to be an ongoing story. I don't think that's going to go away any time soon.

[00:29:08] And I might just get into that next week and let's talk more about that.

[00:29:14] And I know and I think you and I talked about this offline, but I know resilience was not the issue back in the days when River city brewing was being developed or even what Crod Daddy says is Crod Daddy still around.

[00:29:27] I don't know if it is. I don't think it is. No, I didn't think so. I don't know when they go. I didn't know in a close. But did they ever have flooding problems or any problems like that that were created by natural weather disasters?

[00:29:38] I don't recall anything. Yeah, yes, they did. I mean, especially with big storms. Yeah, they had some there's no question about it. So in the real question about it man, you were right, you're right. When we rivers, river city brewer was was like the third.

[00:29:53] I want to say the third restaurant of whatever owned that spot you had. You had the diamond head. Yeah, red, leaving diamond head. You had someplace else that was this go. On that's or in that area. You had something else and you had River city brewery.

[00:30:15] I think diamond head was right before River city. I don't have many order. So this and that used to be called a friendship park where the river city brewery is. And then when I've had a couple of festivals in there during the day.

[00:30:33] Yeah, lots of people before they put the restaurant there. One of the reasons the restaurant was built there was because of the new cost of ranch carbon accrosse. And it had to move farther to the east.

[00:30:46] And so that was going to go right through where the restaurant was. So the restaurant on new restaurant was was conceived in that area. The art was already going to be short. And then you have a river city brewery there. That became the restaurant.

[00:31:04] I got you by the way, one other project which also does not seem to be going as it was planned is is marsh. Museum of Science and History. That was supposed to be going on base street to the North Bank. They needed to raise something like $40 million.

[00:31:21] They were supposed to have 20 million raised by the first of February. They're not there yet and we're already now almost at the first of March. But they have, I think until the end of March to come up with the rest of that balance of 40 million dollars.

[00:31:35] And I'm sure there's a life going on behind the scenes. But I'm not hearing an awful lot about any kind of a public capital campaign to raise that kind of money. Have you heard anything about that at all?

[00:31:47] No, I have one. But I'm going to tell you something. No one Jacksonville like I do and the generosity of some of the people with deep pockets. I can't believe that they will actually not make that happen.

[00:32:02] I just got to believe in my art that there's going to be a way that that's going to happen. Again, we don't need players. We need successes.

[00:32:16] And I think there are enough good people with lots of money that will be willing to invest to make sure my state is still around and moves to that new site. Yeah, not to take issue with what you're saying here.

[00:32:30] But if I were the directors of March of Mosswether, if I were on that board or whatever, I'd say, Okay, I'm ready to move to the north end to the north side like in north north, north walk, riverwalk, but on Bay Street.

[00:32:43] But I don't want to be out there by myself as an island. That's supposed to be all part of a larger development isn't it isn't that just a piece in that puzzle?

[00:32:51] And if the other pieces are not, if the other pieces are not ready to go and if we don't start seeing some cranes and some earth movers, then do we really want to move this from an area that's been established to an area that's new and undeveloped?

[00:33:05] Well, I don't know the answer to that again. That's over my pay grade. But that would be a compliment to the four seasons of the tale. I guess, who's really one?

[00:33:16] Though I'll tell you, if it weren't for public and private education in the field trips that go there and all the other activities that our school systems really keep that place moving. I'm not sure that hotel would be enough to be able to drive that amount of business.

[00:33:35] We'll just have to wait. No, no. No. Exactly. All right. Well, we're coming to the end here, my friend. It's been fun with the two of us. I miss Mike. I tower of course and hope that he feels better.

[00:33:50] But tell us a little bit more about what we're going to do next week and how you want to talk about the park where you? Well, I'm not sure yet. Okay. I'm not sure yet. But going back. I thought we're not being well.

[00:34:04] It was fun having even get an opportunity to actually say something to the sweet. That's very true. Well, he came down with tele-hassy items, I think, because he was there and didn't get home to a very late last night when he called up this morning and said,

[00:34:18] Mike, I'm just not going to be able to make it. I'm not feeling well at all. So we wish him well. And I'm sure, I was going to say, Sue would take care of him.

[00:34:27] But I know Mike, no one takes care of him. He takes care of himself. But nevertheless, we will. He'll help him. Next week. I'm surprised anybody could go over to tell a house he'd do in the session, doesn't come home soon.

[00:34:39] Including the representatives and senators, too, for that matter. Mike, thank you. There are all sick in here. Thank you, buddy. Thank you, guys. We'll talk to you next week. Thank you all for joining us here and once again, join us on any place where you get your podcasts.

[00:34:54] And again, our thanks to the Jackson Bell Historical Society and the Jackson Bell History Center, which we're also going to be talking about in the very near future, because that campaign is going to get going. And I'm very excited.

[00:35:05] We're all very excited about the history center being developed. Thanks for joining us. Have a good week everybody. Bye-bye. Mike's on Mike with Mike Tolberg, Mike Heitauer and Mike Miller can be found on your favorite podcasting platform, Facebook and YouTube. Visit the website at Mike's on Mike.com.

[00:35:23] Join us next time for more conversation with Mike's on Mike.