19 JANUARY, 2020 - THE LOTUS
Lotus Seafood Palace
1150 Bay St, Florence, OR 97493
-------- This property is no longer available to rent or to buy.
$2,650,000 9,583 Sq ft Downtown Riverfront property includes approximately 1.8 acres of submersible land lease and approximately 60 slip marina. Zoned Old Town District Area A, this property is an excellent mixed-use development site. Take advantage of sweeping views of the Siuslaw River, dunes and historic Siuslaw bridge while planning your development. Recent lot line adjustment survey on file.
When you travel, live and move around within many cities and regions of North America, after a few months of acclimatization, you start the process of becoming a local.
Even with such a hallowed title as “local”, or “resident”, unless you are naive… having not been born here from parents who were also born here, all of which never-ever left town (you will never be a “local”).
You will never be privy to the town’s secrets, its mistakes, its curses, who ran off with who’s wife, the suicides and illegitimate children, or its embezzlements, poisonings, wife beatings, whole-house slaughterings, the mass rapes, paternity findings or the burning alive of Sara and her five children… the dark side of town history…
And especially…. "You" ... will “never” be told the people’s names who created all of these sinister events. These are town secrets, and everyone is related to each other, and they were all somehow complicit in the events that happened, so its hush-hush.
But, being new to town, certain things and places stand out as peculiarities, that beautiful house with the all-glass tower rising above it, the lighthouse built back in the woods entirely of abalone shells, the curious WW2 submarine sitting on a hillside lot, or the beer bottle built structure over by the graveyard, and, whats with that airplane sitting in the middle of the graveyard anyway?
So, you ask.
After many months and having asked 30 “true locals” about these things, you have learned nothing, everyone is silent… they stare away from your gaze, or say “boy ! I really don’t know”, or, they change the subject and move the conversation on and away.
For myself, the obvious avoidance of answer is as Hollywood as the places themselves, you ask a policeman, surely that fireman next door will know, how about the C of C or the Mayors office… nope, nada. Like the old Brer rabbit tale “they ain’t sayin’ nothin’”.
This magnificent edifice above called the “Lotus” is one of those… hanging out over the water, and with a coliseum entryway and paved parking lot, one can see the old valet park-your-car set up, that dirt lot was gravel and a part of this and Marina parking as well, it is now divided off and sold-’rezoned”- I would assume it all is part of the city's “imminent domain” take-over.
Now into our fourth year of inquiry, it is a mystery to everyone, it goes so far as the majority pretending to not even know of where I am talking about… I go through the "across from the bed and breakfast and Humane society and sandwiched in between the condominiums and the veterans memorial on bay street".. a simple “I dunno where you are speaking of"... is all I can get, the disavowment is almost laughable, standing in the Lotus parking lot and being told "you know I never noticed that building before !"
Step across the property line on one side and you are standing in the Veterans Memorial, step the other way and you are in the Condominium complex, ask anyone at either place and they look at this monstrous building and see nothing…”I dunno, I work for the Condo” says the maintenance man mowing the lawn. Even the people at the Bread and Breakfast and Humane Society across the street say nothing.
What a magnificent building, built with top of the mark materials, and in a simply gorgeous setting, empty and unattended or maintained (obviously waiting on condemnation or eyesore removal to mature).
With a larger harbor capacity and more scenic location closer to services than the Port of Siuslaw, one can assume who had something to do with this vacancy, and you wonder why it is not on google images or youtube anywhere... but, This one gets my “I dunno, I just live here” award for 2019.