Secret construction.

So, what're we building?

Beats me. Well, were I to guess, I would say it's a hotel, and likely a Hampton Inn. Hamptons have that center pile and wings that jut forth from the rest of the builting. They're also usually four or five stories, tops. 

A Hampton with all the doodads on it.

When they were framing this I thought it might be a Home Depot. You couldn't guess by the signs. You still can't. Construction projects in America always used to have big signs with the art from the architectural firm showing the glorious new thing being built and cueing in the citizens to what wonders awaited. 

The project could be a skyscraper; could be a dam; could be a school.* Whatever it was, the sign was intended to promote the community's interest in it.

But on this project, as on most I see now, there's no signage telling you a damned thing. Well, maybe one of the contractors on the project will have put a sign on the fence -- a dirty sign, toted from job to job -- as a way of keeping the company name up:

And that's it. 

I have to think this is part of a growing trend in the last fifty years to object to anything being built, even if the local town or county legislature approved it. Like Rufus T. Firefly, whatever it is, we're against it. Factory? Pollution. Power plant? Environmental destruction. New housing? Brings in more of THOSE people. Shopping plaza? Death to local businesses. Prison? Not here, bub. Road? Noise and pollution. Dam? What about the red-striped pootwangle fish?

No one wants to live next to a prison, but as for the rest, this is not the attitude of a great nation. 

And it's often not too smart. The local government that got elected by promising jobs becomes accused of taking bribes when the ground is broken for factories or shops that provide those jobs. Maybe we'd all like it if the whole town could be completely supported by a Christmas tree farm and a family-owned beeswax candle shop, but that's not how money works. That's not how anything works.

So we feel betrayed, everyone gets mad, the project gets built anyway, and only the lawyers are happy in the end. 

And maybe Joe of Joe's Cement.

This, I think, is why we never see information about the exciting project on signage. The less information, the less chance people will find an excuse to hate it, and go grab torches and pitchforks and cause trouble. 

It's all quite exhausting. 

Meanwhile, I really hope that is a Hampton Inn and not a prison. 

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* My high school was supposed to be a brand-new building, and had the signs to prove it. Then the city teetered on the brink of bankruptcy, and all building projects were stopped. We had to attend the old 1930's building, which was so overcrowded that the fire marshall probably turned white with fear if he ever peeked in. The new school opened the year after I graduated. It looked pretty much like the art on the signs.