Fire sends Coffee Break to sidewalk

Blaze guts Ghost Paradize and causes slight damages to Yellow Door Antiques and Art.

Downtown Rome business leaders huddled on the sidewalk in the 200 block of North Fifth Avenue for their monthly Downtown Coffee Break on Friday morning.

The event was slated to be held inside Yellow Door Antiques and Art but had to be moved outside because of a fire that burned an adjacent building and caused smoke damage to the antiques shop.

Eric Lindberg updated the merchants group on the downtown water line replacement project. Work has been completed in the 100 block of Broad Street, with just some final tying of lines near the Southeastern Mills plant winding up Friday.

Lindberg said testing of the fire hydrant at the corner of Broad Street and East First Avenue revealed a significantly improved fire flow of 1,400 gallons per minute.

“Well be coming up East First Street beginning Monday.” Lindberg said. He told the business crowd work should get under Second Avenue in about three weeks. “We plan to keep Second Avenue open during the work,” Lindberg said.

Andi Beyer told the group that as many as 1,500 people would be coming to Rome on Oct. 15-18 for the second major geocaching event, officially called “Going Caching 2015: A Roman Renaissance.”

In geocaching, participants use a GPS device to hide and seek containers called caches.

Beyer said the welcome given to the geocachers a year ago was buzzing on the Internet for months. “We can provide good geocaching but to be made to feel like a part of the community, everybody welcoming them, that put it over the top,” Beyer said.

She reported that people have already registered for the event from as far away as the United Kingdom.

New Rome International Film Festival Director Seth Ingram updated the group on the 2015 edition of the film festival, Sept. 10-13. More than 80 films will be shown with entries coming from 24 countries. Ingram said he expects more than 40 of the directors to come to Rome for the event, which will be based at the DeSoto Theatre, 530 Broad St.

DDA board member Ann Pullen reported that the life-size statue of Ellen Axson Wilson has been delivered and will be installed on the Town Green with an unveiling ceremony Sept. 17 at 5:30 p.m. The statue depicts Wilson painting a riverscape.