[CPEO-BIF] Jimmy's Bar & Grill, Benton Harbor, Michigan

[lsiegel at cpeo.org (Lenny Siegel)]

New restaurant on Main?

Commission adds vacant building to Brownfield plan; New Buffalo eatery 
owner to invest $1.1 million

JULIE SWIDWA
St. Joseph Herald Palladium (MI)
January 22, 2009

BENTON HARBOR - A new restaurant and up to 60 jobs could be coming to 
downtown Benton Harbor later this year.

The City Commission has approved an addition to the city's Brownfield 
plan, adding a parcel on which a New Buffalo restaurant owner wants to 
open another Jimmy's Bar & Grill.

Jim Frye intends to invest $1.1 million in property at 200 E. Main St., 
demolishing a long-vacant building and developing a two-level restaurant 
with a banquet and conference hall that will seat 150. Marc Florian, 
consultant to the city's Brownfield Authority, told the City Commission 
Tuesday that Frye intends to give Benton Harbor residents first priority 
when he hires workers for jobs that will pay $7 to $15 an hour.

"When I put up my 'help wanted' sign, I would really like to hire 
locally," Frye said in a phone interview Wednesday. "My thinking is, it 
helps a restaurant when people come in and see people from their own 
town working there. I want to draw as much as I can from the area and 
help the local economy."

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.heraldpalladium.com/articles/2009/01/22/local_news/205529.txt

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel at cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org