Lake Wales has a couple of landmarks that soar over the landscape. One that is Grand but doesn't say so, and one that isn't, but calls itself Grand. I refer to Bok Tower, a source of pride to all Central Floridians and the other is the Grand Hotel. A pea green, six story eyesore of a building that has been empty for the last 10 or 15 years.

The last successful venture was the Agape Group, a Christian organization with the main feature that I remember, the ice cream parlor featuring singing waiters. A real treat. But in the end they failed.

Since then a procession of entrepreneurs have bought the hotel with grand ideas only to see the enormity of the problem and slink away.

Now comes a more enterprising entrepreneur. He has "Grand" ideas too, but his most important idea is to tap the taxpayers to the tune of about $2 million. The city manager and commission are listening, as they should. It is their obligation to seek a solution to a community problem and it is surely that. They should listen, but respectively decline.

When government gets involved there are other consequences. I am in the camping business and I see the difficulty when private owners try to compete against the government. The government campgrounds give more for less because they don't pay for the land, don't have the normal expenses or don't charge market prices because they are subsidized by the taxpayer. Their main selling point is dirt-cheap prices. By doing so they drive out taxpaying businesses and deprive the taxpayer of those potential taxes. If you are a camper it is nice to get dirt cheap camping but the taxpayer gets hit twice, once to subsidize the camping plus the lost of potential tax revenue.

A variation of this may be happening in this situation. The current plan for the Grand Hotel is to be an assisted living and retirement center. On going is a combined effort by the major churches in Lake Wales to start a new retirement center. It has been a struggle to get consensus on the location, to get the land, do feasibility studies and now they are very concerned at what the city is going to do with the hotel and how will that impact on their facility. Because of this they have put things on hold until the city decides. It is hard to compete with someone who has a $2 million head start from the taxpayers. I really question if the hotel is the place for a retirement center. There is no parking on the property. Additional parking in some remote location would have to be developed. There is not room for a square foot of green grass…. Forget a tree or a fountain. The question my good friend asks; Is this where I would put my mother? I can't envision it as the preferred location for my mother.

I can't get over the idea that I would feel more comfortable if the city commission spent taxpayers money another way. Hire one of these special firms that place a few strategically located dynamite sticks and on some early Sunday morning they push the button and the building slowly settles in a cloud of dust and is no more!

This solution would solve a decade plus problem, create some usable space in the center of town, maybe for some additional parking or perhaps a park with that green grass and trees we enjoy. The recently redone Shopping Basket Market would get some visibility and maybe some new tenants. Plus we might get a few seconds of airtime on CNN!

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