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Five months after Alltite and MobileCal founder Tom Smith closed on a deal to buy a 14,000-square-foot building at 141 S. Rock Island near The Wichita Eagle , he's now selling it.
"To renovate the building the way I was going to renovate, it just didn't appraise for what it was going to cost to build it," Smith says.
"I was really disappointed that it didn't work out."
In January, Have You Heard? first reported Smith had a contract on the building, which was built in 1901 as a livery stable in conjunction with the adjacent Union Station .
Smith currently leases space on the east side for his companies.
Alltite sells industrial bolting equipment and services to heavy industrial plants. MobileCal is a mobile calibration lab he developed to service industrial equipment on site.
Smith had planned to create a loft-style office for his new space.
The appraisal on the renovation "was kind of the last piece of the puzzle," Smith says.
He says financing was contingent on it.
"The economies aren't there."
Now, he's trying to decide whether he'll build or look for another existing structure to transform into his offices.
"I'm looking everywhere," Smith says.
He says several people are interested in the Rock Island space. Smith says potential buyers would renovate the space.
"So something good is going to happen to that building."
Barleycorn's is back
Curt Melzer is bringing Barleycorn's back to its original spot at 608 E. Douglas.
"It was always kind of a hidden thought in my mind that I would love to bring back the name," he says. "That's what we were doing at Blue Lounge anyway."
Melzer opened Blue Lounge after he moved Barleycorn's to the former River's Edge space in Delano in early 2006.
"River's Edge kind of fell into my lap," he says. "I got it at a good price."
It wasn't a good deal in the end, though.
"What happened was I basically split my crowd."
So Melzer closed Barleycorn's, which is where Michelle Borin now has the Garage .
Before Melzer officially changes the Blue Lounge name to Barleycorn's, he's going to close for about a week in mid-November to do some remodeling and upgrades to the space that will "bring back the reputation for being one of the premier live music spots in town."
That includes an upgraded sound system and a possible new stage area.
There also will be new paint, new bar stools and "some booths back like we had at the old Barleycorn's."
Melzer has been mulling the changes for some time. He decided that November, which will be the 12th anniversary of Barleycorn's 1999 opening in the space, would be a fitting time.
He hopes to close for no more than about a week.
"I'm doing well now, and I just hate to lose business over trying to make the place better, but sometimes that's just what you've got to do."
You don't say
"If all goes well, I will watch it in a jet-lagged condition then collapse into bed."
_ James Wiebe , in an e-mail from Europe where he's on business, on how he hopes to make it home in time Wednesday to watch the "MythBusters "episode that tests whether his duct-taped Belite Aircraft can fly (http://bit.ly/pM1Ef4)
