16 NOV 05: SEE DUCK CITY
AFLAC did it again Tuesday - announcing an expansion which will bring 2,000 more jobs to Columbus over the next five years. Don't be surprised if in honor of this announcement, the city puts AFLAC ducks in every fountain.
AFLAC plans to invest $100 million in a major expansion at the Corporate Ridge Industrial Park. With that large a commitment, you policyholders had better not get sick....
The AFLAC expansion project is so huge that Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue came to Columbus to help with the groundbreaking. Then he went to the Georgia Baptist Convention meeting and - well, who can help me here? Did the Governor speak against lusting after riches?
Governor Sonny Perdue says it's always good to have economic growth for Georgia from a homegrown business. For one thing, it means more jobs he can claim as his own when he campaigns for reelection....
The construction will add 340,000 square feet to AFLAC's offices at the Corporate Ridge Industrial Park, giving it more than one million square feet there overall. And if the insurance market ever crashes - voila! Columbus will inherit the world's largest recreation center.
Phase one of the AFLAC expansion will involve 90,000 more square feet, for the customer service department. I never realized the computers for mazes of telephone automation needed this much space.
The second phase of AFLAC's expansion will be larger, and will focus on technology. It's good to see a Columbus company is on the cutting edge -- building more fuel-efficient insurance policies.
AFLAC Chairman Dan Amos timed the expansion announcement to fall on the week of the company's 50th anniversary. This seems to prove once and for all that the duck lays golden eggs....
Executive Vice President Paul Amos II told WRBL he personally never expected AFLAC to become so large. Tell me about it! I never expected the duck to become so famous that he appears with Wayne Newton and Chevy Chase in commercials.
Columbus Mayor Bob Poydasheff was thrilled with the AFLAC announcement of new jobs. He said combined with the transfer of thousands of soldiers to Fort Benning, the city will have a "tsunami" of growth. But I think we can predict which group will win the bidding wars for new homes....
The Columbus Chamber of Commerce calls the expansion its biggest economic announcement of the year. One official said imagining the city without AFLAC is a "pretty dreary, dreadful thought." Mike Helton at CB&T needs to take a hint from this, and make funnier commercials.
With all the expansion planned at Corporate Ridge, I couldn't help wondering about the future of AFLAC Tower. Could this company someday move completely away from the center of Columbus? After all, those new Fort Benning soldiers might like high-rise converted condominiums.
That wasn't the only thing making news, on a busy Tuesday:
+ The Mega Millions drawing was for $315 million - yet things seemed strange near the Oglethorpe Bridge. The Georgia Baptist Convention delegates stayed inside the Columbus Civic Center. They didn't cross Fourth Street, to preach to sinners buying tickets at Spectrum.
+ Columbus Council confirmed Jeff Meyer as the city's new fire chief. Meyer once delivered newspapers for money. Now he's in charge of making sure delivery drivers don't throw papers too high, and into electric lines.
+ Blackmon Road Middle School held "Mix It Up at Lunch Day." Some of us can remember when this would mean students skipped class, went into the woods beyond the football field and had a fistfight.
(The REAL goal of "Mix It Up at Lunch Day" was for students to sit next to someone they'd never met before. The faculty is trying to stop school "cliques" - which is so old-fashioned, since the Internet age encourages them all the time.)
+ The Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation put City Mills of Columbus on its list of ten statewide "places in peril." OK, let's see trust members stand outside the buildings and stop those bulldozers....
+ Auburn University football players met the media about this weekend's showdown with Alabama - and linebacker Travis Williams showed up with a large face of a tiger on his head. Imagine what he would have done to Aubie the mascot, if his team had LOST to Georgia.
+ WKCN "Kissin' 99.3 FM" unveiled a new commercial for the Country Music Association Awards, promoting its "two-minute guarantee." Wow - those slackers at Domino's Pizza impressed me with 30....
+ Instant Message to the man who predicted to me the CMA Awards would be filled with "white men, all looking about the same, and all wearing white hats": Well, not quite. Alan Jackson was about the only one who wore a white hat.
(P.S.: Shame on you, CBS, for cutting off the band Alabama as members accepted entry in the Country Music Hall of Fame. The network simply HAD to go to commercials - as if we hadn't heard that Big and Rich song about the "cit-AY" enough already.)
SCHEDULED THURSDAY: A Columbus version of a "culture war"....
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