Lincolnite

Judds Bros. Construction has been put in timeout by the City as a result of delays associated with the company's failure to finish the South Street bridge project on time. Judds has been declared an "irresponsible bidder" and now can't win any City jobs -- not even as a subcontractor -- for 8 months. I wish I knew more about exactly what went wrong so I could more accurately determine if the consequence is fair. You've no doubt seen Judds Bros. crews working on projects all around Lincoln. They seem to do good work, yet four out of eleven projects done for the City since 2007 have been finished late. That doesn't seem consistent with the motto splashed on their homepage: "On schedule, quality construction, with attention to detail". It's not pleasant to see a local company be blacklisted, but maybe that's what it will take to snap them out of this funk. Or maybe it's not a funk at all. Perhaps it's not uncommon for four out of eleven projects to come in late. Again, my ignorance of construction management is showing. That sounds like a lot to me, but my personal experience with web development projects tells me that some projects just go awry. I have no idea what an acceptable rate of poorly predicted timelines might be in Judds's industry. Does the 8 month ban sound fair to you?

Many Lincolnites have clamored for years to get a downtown grocery store. Early reports that at least one proposal for the Pershing Center block includes a grocery store naturally raised a lot of interest. I know I was intrigued. Then this came along. According to Deena Winter, the proposed grocery store clocks in at a whopping 5,100 square feet. That's smaller than the Walgreen's at 13th and O. There are houses in Wilderness Ridge with pantries larger than that. I questioned Ms. Winter, thinking surely she had made a typo. She assured me the number is accurate according to the submitted proposal. Whatever boost could have been given to this project by the presence of a grocery store is surely overcome by its insultingly-small size. It's hard to imagine doing much with a space less than one-fifth the size of University Place's Heartland Pantry. That's not to say the entire proposal is bunk, of course. I'm just very surprised by the grocery store's size. I didn't expect a full-blown Super Saver, but something in the Ideal Grocery range (15,000 to 20,000 square feet) seems much more appropriate to me. Then again, I'm not the one putting my money on the line.

KLIN reports that one of the proposals for the current Pershing Center site includes a grocery store, along with other retail and residential space. That's going to resonate with quite a few Downtown-area residents. One of the other proposals is, of course, a new library. The third and final proposal hasn't (to my knowledge) been announced yet. At this stage I've got to give the edge to the grocery store.