Rumors were confirmed last night at LSPCC’s annual meeting: Third Place Books is opening a third location in Seward Park! PCC’s Acting CEO Randy Lee is hopeful that the Columbia City PCC will be open for business in mid-June or July, and that they can close down Seward Park one night and open up Columbia City the next day for a seamless transition. Third Place Books will be ready to go with renovations upon PCC’s move, and could be open as early as next December. Plans include a full service restaurant serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, a café, a beer and wine bar in the basement, all housed in a book store with gathering places for community and non-profit groups, neighbors and friends.
We are concerned of course about competition for Caffe Vita and Bookworm Exchange, but we hope that an additional offering in our business district brings more business to the community overall. We will mourn the loss of our neighborhood grocer for sure. How great is it that there will be minimal down time in the space? We are so thankful to PCC for recruiting Third Place Books and paving the way for what we believe will be a good investment in our neighborhood.
In other news, Flying Squirrel is expanding west into Sharhon’s Too beauty salon space, and Sharhon’s is moving next door to Noah’s. The Combined Sewer Overflow tanks on LWB @ 49th and 53rd are going through final testing, and construction should be complete near the end of January. Construction of the North Henderson large CSO tank in the tennis courts location of Seward Park is to begin mid-January.
