Delray Beach leaders recently had a design workshop to develop ideas to improve the beach and adjacent area along A1A. The city, its Community Redevelopment Agency and the Beach Property Owners' Association organized the workshop. The master plan will encompass a wide range of ideas and designs for the mile and a quarter of beachfront area.

Troy Sjostrom knocked in six runs to lead Baytowne in a 28-0 shutout of McLendon Builders in the Men's Recreational Softball League at Morgan Sports Center in Destin. Sjostrom ripped a triple and four singles for six RBIs. After a slow start, Baytowne finished strong with 12 runs in the top of the fifth. Josh Weddington hit four singles for an RBI for Baytowne.

A failure to use smart-growth principles is part of the reason the state is in economic free fall, Gov. David A. Paterson said Friday at a planning and design meeting. "Smart growth is the idea of addressing the progress of the future rather than the comfort of the present," he told hundreds of representatives of the building and design and planning industries Friday.

Gilbert's fourth hotel, which marked its official opening Thursday, is ushering 96 rooms into the market. The Hampton Inn & Suites Phoenix/Gilbert at 3265 S. Market St., near the Santan Freeway stretch of Loop 202 and Val Vista Drive, is averaging 35 to 40 percent occupancy per night since it began taking customers in late October, said Karla Boyles, director of sales.

Hotel occupancy fell further in September at area hotels, and a new report tells hoteliers that improvement is unlikely until 2011. Compared with the same month a year earlier, occupancy fell 2 percent to 62.4 percent in coastal North San Diego County hotels. Average room rates also fell, dipping 3.5 percent in North San Diego County and 5.5 percent in the Temecula area.

As we compiled our list of restaurants in Wichita that will be open and serving on Thanksgiving Day, a few interesting trends appeared. For one, the restaurants that will be open report more interest from potential diners this year. Another trend: For the past several years, restaurants have been steadily raising the price of their buffets.

Hotel chains like to tout their large, comfortable beds as a selling point, but those 125-pound mattresses are likely causing greater injury to female, Hispanic and Asian hotel workers, according to a study to be published in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine in January.

Next year about this time, two Laurel County natives will appear on the big screen in a Walt Disney movie. David Black and Roger D. Smith, both graduates of Laurel County High School, spent a week at Keeneland in Lexington and a week at Churchill Downs in Louisville last September filming "Secretariat."

Gilbert's fourth hotel, which marked its official opening Thursday, is ushering 96 rooms into the market. The Hampton Inn & Suites Phoenix/Gilbert at 3265 S. Market St., near the Santan Freeway stretch of Loop 202 and Val Vista Drive, is averaging 35 to 40 percent occupancy per night since it began taking customers in late October, said Karla Boyles, director of sales.

Everybody's a germophobe in 2009, and that's been great for Pat DeLaura's business. DeLaura, director of U.S. sales for hand-sanitizer company Germstar, said dodging H1N1 flu outbreaks is a hot topic among those attending this week's Global Gaming Expo, and the heightened interest in hygiene is driving lots of traffic to his booth at the expo's F&B at G2E show.