With steel girders reaching more than 55 feet in the air, the new $24.3 million headquarters of the region's toll-road agency is taking shape next to the busiest stretch of State Road 408.
But while the Orlando-Orange County Expressway Authority sees the new 81,000-square-foot building with its three-story atrium as a symbol of progress and the future, motorists such as Kevin Mueller see it as evidence of the embattled agency's extravagance.
"It sticks out like a sore thumb -- like a castle on the hill," said Mueller, an Orlando software engineer who has watched construction progress as he slows to pay the 75-cent toll on his commute. "I don't know if they need it or not. I just thought it sends the wrong signal."
The new building is four times the size of the agency's current headquarters. And while it will be open to the public, it will be mostly office and meeting space for use by expressway employees and their contractors.
The building's size and cost, and the authority's decision to provide office space for its contractors, make the headquarters seem like a mistake to the authority's newest board member.
"If I were looking at this from a pure business decision, I wouldn't have done it," said Harvey Massey, who was appointed to the authority by Gov. Charlie Crist in February.
For more of the story: http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/custom/growth/orl-xway13x07mar13,0,4008301.story?coll=orl-news-growth-headlines
Interesting, I wonder how many other talk show hosts get paid to keep their mouth shut or to support or oppose a position.
Oops.
Politicians are making it harder and harder for the public to have any confidence in them. Too many of them have gone over to the dark side--with a seemingly insatiable thirst to have their palms greased.
Wow! I didn't know newspapers still did this muck-raking stuff! That leads me to my next (rather cynical) question: I wonder what political party Guetzloe is affiliated with...