Business

The latest Columbia state of the city address reports mixed emotions about the city’s economic situation.

Columbia Fire Department investigators are looking into the cause of a three-alarm fire at the Brookside on College apartment complex. Sunday’s fire caused millions of dollars in damage, destroying most of the still-under construction apartments, but the owners plan to rebuild.

Missouri drivers may notice a change in the landscape along roadways and medians later this summer — more grass.

Burned traffic signals lay in front of the smoldering apartment complex at the corner of College Ave. and Walnut Street. Fire crews were still spraying water onto the burned Brookside apartment complex at 12:30 p.m. Sunday. Smoke could still be seen rising from some torched portions of the property on its corners. The apartments were due to open August, 2012.

The fire started Sunday morning around 5 a.m. In a message to renters, on the Brookside Facebook page, the company said about 30 percent of the complex will be completed by the end of August, when leases begin.  

One man’s historic building is another’s nightmarish living conditions. Listen to the audio to hear former MSP inmate Joshua Kezer talks about what it was like to be incarcerated for 10 years in one of the oldest prisons in the U.S.