All eyes on gasoline prices

This is just to note that the gas price gadget on the right side of this page shows Idaho Falls' lowest pump price today was $3.61 a gallon, down from Sunday's price of $3.66 a gallon. It's at the Maverik on Woodruff Avenue.

I don't know if this is a fluke or an aberration, but I think it bears watching. Meantime, here's a link to the page that you would get to if you entered our Zip Code in the box: http://www.automotive.com/gas-prices/34/83401.html?zipcode=83401

Event Center board busy behind the scenes

An artist's rendering of what the Idaho Falls Event Center might look like.

No ground has been broken, but things are moving ahead with the Idaho Falls Event Center.

"I get asked all the time what's going on," said Bob Everhart, a member of the Idaho Falls Auditorium District. "I tell them nothing you can see, but there's a lot happening."

The district's board of directors wants to be certain their proposal has everything they want they come up with a price tag, he said. If having everything turns out to be too expensive, they will start with the basics and have a plan that can be expanded in phases.

One thing the center will have is an ice rink for a professional hockey franchise, which the directors say will be the "anchor tenant." The ice will be covered for trade shows or entertainment.

"We're looking at having our first hockey game in 2014," Everhart said.

In May 2011, Idaho Falls voters approved forming an auditorium district and a 5 percent surcharge on local hotel guests, estimated at $1.5 million a year. Along with fees and ticket sales, that money will be used to run the event center, to be located on 20.5 acres in the Snake River Landing development, whose operator, Ball Ventures, has donated the land.

Everhart said they plan to put out a request for proposals and hire an operator within 60 days. Once ground it broken, most likely in 2013, the project will take 15 to 16 months to finish.

To finance the construction, Everhart said they are looking into having investment grade bonds issued. Rather than going to voters, this can be done with a judge's approval. "The auditorium district in Boise just did it. We're following their lead," Everhart said.

CRSA, the Idaho Falls architectural firm working with the district, has been testing soil to determine what it will cost to excavate the site, which is just south of Pancheri Drive on the east side of Interstate 15. Negotiations with the New Sweden Irrigation District have to be taken care of as well (any time there's an alteration to a canal bank, such as a bridge, it requires the operator's permission.)

As far as design goes, CRSA is working with Sink Combs Dethlefs, a Denver architect that specializes in event facilities and sports arenas.

Waiting for word on Idaho Falls Best Buy store

Best Buy has announced it will be closing 50 stores in the coming fiscal year, but there is no news yet whether its store in Idaho Falls, No. 944, will be affected.

The retailer on Thursday reported a $1.7 billion loss for its fourth quarter, which ended March 3. Along with the store closures, Best Buy also plans to eliminate about 400 jobs in its corporate and support areas. The goal, the company said in a statement, is to achieve $800 million in cost reductions by its fiscal year 2015.

So far, the only specifics the company has offered has been in a canned e-mail: On Thursday, March 29, we notified employees at five stores in the Twin Cities area, and one store in the San Antonio area, that their stores will close later this year as Connected Store remodels are completed in their markets.

The company plans to cut costs by $250 million in FY 2013 and by $800 million by FY 2015. "We are quite deliberate and thoughtful when we make such decisions," Best Buy spokeswoman Susan Busch Nehring said over email. "We are working to ensure the impact to our employees will be as minimal as possible, while serving all customers in a convenient and satisfying way. We will announce details about specific store locations and timing for closings once they are finalized."

As part of the company’s new strategy, Best Buy will remodel some of its big box stores with what it calls a “Connected Store” format. These stores will “focus on connections, services and multi-channel experience through a total transformation of both the store and the operating environment.”

Stay tuned. Consumer spending may be up, but consumer spending patterns are changing faster than anyone can make heads or tails of.

Titanic Remembrance Teas planned at Stillwater Mansion

Page 1 of the New York Times, April 16,1912

There's little more than two weeks before the centennial of history's most memorable shipwreck, the Titanic, which sank in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on April 15, 2012, around 2:20 a.m.

For moviegoers, director James Cameron has remastered his 1998 film "Titanic" to 3-D. That should be interesting, but if you're looking for something more intimate The Stillwater, 387 N.Water Ave., will be hosting a Titanic Remembrance Tea every Tuesday in April at 6:30 p.m.

The Ladies Tea Guild of South Eastern Idaho are helping to put the events on, but members of the public can make reservations by calling (208) 200-4473 or e-mailing stillwatermansion@hotmail.com.

The first event, this Tuesday, will feature storyteller Teresa Clark presenting accounts of the Titanic's survivors and music by the White Star Orchestra.

My favorite account of the Titanic comes from book called "The Sway of the Grand Saloon: A Social History of the North Atlantic," by John Malcom Brinnin (Delacorte Press, 1971). Brinnin is mainly a poet, so I thought I might share a passage from his account.

The unsinkable ship, the most superb technological achievement of her time, the dreamed-of sign and symbol that man's mechanical skill would carry him into a luminous new world of power, freedom and affluence had become, in the words of one contemporary dirge, "the most imposing mausoleum that ever housed the bones of men since the Pyramids rose from the desert sand." Nothing had gone wrong. Everything had gone wrong. The odds on a ship such as the Titanic hitting an iceberg and foundering under the blow were calculated at a million to one. With devastating and absolute precision the Titanic and her officers had in the space of four days surmounted these odds. Designed to survive anything that man or nature could bring to bear against her, the great ship could not survive even the first voyage of the twenty-five or thirty long years of sea-going for which she was built.

Irish pub planned for old Hub Bar site

For years it was known as the Hub Bar and for a brief time it was Shooters, but the building at the northeast corner of Broadway and Park Avenue is going to have a radically different look and feel by this summer. State Rep. Janice McGeachin and her husband, Jim, have got framers busy inside transforming the interior into an Irish pub. No word on what the name will be or the exact opening date, but here is a picture of the work that's going on as well as an artist's rendering of what the property is going to look like inside and out.