Schooner Bay and Phil and Mary and Steph

I heard that too. Wish them well.

i saw phil at schooner bay yesterday. hope they leave the salad bar.
are you serious that they are going to build that close to gallows bay hardware. if so, how can that be a good business move.

Good question, Speedy. I don't know, but they DO say that one gas station will go out of business where two will thrive. And, if they have good parking and trailer access, it will almost certainly be a good move. And, I don't know of anyone who has heard for sure that the Armstrongs intend to remain in the hardware business. They are certainly investing in improvements to Gallows Bay. Just rambling thoughts...

i heard the same story. i think they should just stick to running a nice grocery store for the east enders. don't spread themselves to thin.

a well run store takes alot of work so concentrate on one thing for a while.....my opinion. but what ever they do i wish them alot of luck.

My Advice to Steph, Don't Mess with the Bakery!:X

Wonder how well this bodes for Lori's new grocery store at Sierra Verde road? (wasn't she putting in a small grocery store to rival Schooner Bay along with her new restaurant?)

I also hope they don't mess with the bakery and deli and salad bar! Also hope they keep Entemens donuts stocked*-). We don't have them here in southeast Texas and that was a fun (and diet ruining) discovery! Oh man... now I'm craving one of those chocolate donuts.:-X

paula....i am beginning to wonder if Lori's will ever open. i live very very near there and i see a few workers once in awhile. i wish it would open. not sure what she will stock and if competition to schooner bay.

I just hope they lower the price. i will only buy there if in need and to lazy to run to larger cheaper store. if they lowered prices i think business would pick up greatly. I know it has been mentioned to them.

But another hardware store??? hummmmm i question that idea.

I saw Lori last weekend, the new date is July

Anyone who's been here long enough to remember Solitude Store knows that Lori's will almost certainly succeed. Solitude store did a great business out of a tiny space and made a living for its 3 owners. The people who bought it (Lori's parents, or inlaws, iirc) ruined it, but Lori has learned what works. She made a go of the place at the Reef despite it's absurdly small size.

The building at Sierra Verde should serve as a lesson to anyone who is curious about Warren Mosler and his ability to develop and manage anything, his sensitivity for the community he has tried to buy, and his overall economic savvy.

The building at Sierra Verde should serve as a lesson to anyone who is curious about Warren Mosler and his ability to develop and manage anything, his sensitivity for the community he has tried to buy, and his overall economic savvy.

What (and where) is the building at Sierra Verde, what's the lesson, and what's the impression we should get of Warren Mosler? It sounds like I may be too far west to know.

Are you talking about the fact that he bought Grassy Point and built a house on it?

Lori is building her new restaurant/deli/grocery store(?) at the corner of Sierra Verde and east end road. She didn't mention who was actually doing the building when we talked to her. She and Paulie were super excited about it-- I hope they're not having problems with the contractors or whoever. Reminds you of Don't Stop the Carnival doesn't it? But without the laughs.

There are many lessons. And I invite you all to scrutinize him and reach your own conclusions--certainly do not take my word for any of them.

One lesson is that he does not understand economics. He controls a great deal of his family wealth which allows him to play at many games, but he found and bought stx while the market was at its highest and has tried to dump properties as the market bottomed.

Another lesson is that he is a speculator, not an investor. Investors invest money with the hope of a return while speculators try to capitalize on price fluctuations. Mosler has bought many, many properties on stx and has invested in almost none of them. He has strung a couple of contractors along who are plugging away at places like Lori's new building, but he has not made an effort to build anything except, afaik, the house for his daughter (grassy pt) and, in partnership with Chris Hanley, the dismal self-storage place at 7 Flags rd. which is an outgrowth of Warren's Tile Pile. (Which, by the way, he imported and stacked in the weather on pallets which have rotted and collapsed, breaking most of the tiles. What's the return on that investment, I wonder.)

Investors further understand that it takes money to make money, and if you expect to make money from a community you must invest in that community. Even Leon Hess, Alcoa, Vialco and Prosser put money into the community. What has Warren done? Zip. Nothing. Any advertising? nope. A grant here and there? nothing worth mentioning.

Further, he has no sense of, or interest in, the culture of the island he has bought. He behaves like a kid who buys a new gadget and throws away the instructions. When he realizes it won't respond to him and that he can't figure out how to make it work, he tosses it aside. His last two election campaigns for delegate have made that point clearly.

He and his family live behind gates, they employ almost exclusively white people, they do not engage in the community they live in, and they are afraid of it.

Bob, if you are the Bob I think you are, you may know another of his botched projects: the bulldozed lot at the intersection where N Shore road turns toward Salt River. That was to be another minimart until the downturn in the economy. Sadly, that happens to have been the site of the oldest human habitation in the Virgin Islands. He had it bulldozed, with no clear plan, and now it is lost for ever.

Let me be clear: in no way do I blame him for spot zoning. That is a chronic problem in our local government and there isn't much any of us can do about it. I DO blame him for exploiting spot zoning, and in doing so desecrating our island without giving us anything, ANYTHING! in return.

And his boat is absolutely the ugliest thing on the water. He managed the impossible: he took Roger Hatfield's already ugly Gold Coast powerboat design and made it mud-fence ugly.

Disclosure...Early on, I was entranced by the flash and the cash, and I once thought about working on his campaign for delegate, so I looked into his background, his writings and his detractors. What I found, even then, led me to believe that we'd be a whole lot better off without him. (Hey, maybe we should call that the Stanford Syndrome!) All of my subsequent experience supports that conclusion. Of course, ymmv, so check him out and make up your own mind.

rks: Thanks for clarifying.

we use to run the solitude store.....rks we did not ruin it

DC I'm referring to the people who bought the business from Jeff Seroogy and his two partners whose names I cannot recall just now. I can't say if that's you because I don't know who you are. I seem to recall, as I said, that they were somehow related to Lori. Those people removed about a third of the shelf space, raised prices by 50%, and the parking lot went from being eternally full to desolate. Parking used to overflow onto the goat side of the road before those folks came along. I hope that wasn't you, but if it was, I'd say the shoe fits.

nope not me.

Correction: They (Phil and Mary) plan to open the hardware store in the building across from ABC Janitors, which they've bought, and then plan to expand to a new building on the corner lot by Schooner Bay Mkt.

I believe it's the old Premiere Wine & Spirits building; I see a lot of the Hardware store employees now working at the market.

I recently heard Warren Mosler is moving back to Conneccticut

he's running in the primary for US senate from CT...

He was originally going to run for President but now I see he is running for Senate in CT so I guess he must move back.

Don't know Warren Mosler personally but what rks said pretty much sums it up. He's nothing more than another rich egomaniac that came into the territory using his money to buy him anything he wanted, including some local gov't officials to "cut through necessary red tape" with absolutely no regard for anything or anybody except himself. At one time about a year ago there were rumblings in Cane Bay about Mosler's plan to re-route the North Shore road. Survey was done for the re-routing but nothing has happened so far. My opinion is Mosler is not good for this island nor is he somebody whom I would vote into public office.So now's he's in CT to try and buy his way into the U.S. Senate since Christopher Dodd chose not to run when his term as a CT senator runs out.

Don't know Warren Mosler personally but what rks said pretty much sums it up. He's nothing more than another rich egomaniac that came into the territory using his money to buy him anything he wanted, including some local gov't officials to "cut through necessary red tape" with absolutely no regard for anything or anybody except himself. At one time about a year ago there were rumblings in Cane Bay about Mosler's plan to re-route the North Shore road. Survey was done for the re-routing but nothing has happened so far. My opinion is Mosler is not good for this island nor is he somebody whom I would vote into public office.So now's he's in CT to try and buy his way into the U.S. Senate since Christopher Dodd chose not to run when his term as a CT senator runs out.

Poor "rich guys"... the are SO out of fashion right now.

1. We spend all our time complaining about redtape and govt bungling around here.... and then complain about people who try to "cut through" ?

2. The guy did nothing but spend money trying to develop things (restaurants, stores, etc) and he's a rich bad man?

3. The guy ran for a political seat to effect change, and wants to do it again because he thinks he understands the way out of the financial MESS that others have created, ...and that means he doesn't care or is trying to buy his way in?

4. He owns a lot of the property behind Cane Bay, and hasn't forced out the small local businesses there, and hasn't put up condos or a hotel, but suggests re-routing the road to reduce congestion, improve safety, and improve the quality of the beach, ...and he's an idiot??? (Have you tried to drive past Cane Bay on a Sunday?)

5. He bulldozes a small lot to put in a much needed store at Salt River (which gets waylayed by the recession), and is building a new (and nice) restaurant on the East End to give Lori a place to tickle our taste buds (which has taken too long but what doesn't around here), but he's not good for the island? (re: Salt River...somehow it's okay that the National Park Service is going to spend tens of millions of dollars to build a marine research facility at Salt River on top of burial grounds and can't keep the Landing cleaned up ...and nobody posts about that)

6. He puts his political viewpoints on the web and in publication for all to see, yet it's OK to assasinate his character here on the board by people who sign their posts with their initials and don't offer constructive plans and ideas? (I may not agree with some of his ideas, but at least he's trying to constructively engage the conversation)

7. The guy has invested in numerous innovate companies and independent entrepreneurial manufacturing businesses that actually create tax-paying jobs (like his car company), ...and he's somehow a "rich egomaniac"?

8. He wasn't "bawn here" and that makes him an interloper? If being "bawn here" politician meant you understood the problems of the island, then why do we still have the problems? (Perhaps "bawn here" is the problem?)

IMHO, we need MORE people who have been successful -and have the finances, lack of rap sheet, and 3rd party recommendations to prove it, to come forward and invest themselves, their ideas, and their money. We especially need those who have the kind of expertise which is beyond the comprehension of the yokel government employees and politicos, and average citizen (which includes me).

Warren Mosler? Never met the man.