Soon, they say – end of March – the first of five new restaurants will open at Liberty Wharf, the $65 million development on the site of the former Jimmy’s Harborside. The first to open will be a Mexican restaurant, Temazcal Tequila Cantina. It’s not going for your average Tex-Mex fare. On the menu: roast suckling pig and … some kind of exotic fungus that grows on corn stalks. Sure, fine – keep the tequila coming.

The other three places: Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steak House, another Jerry Remy’s, another Legal Seafoods, and an as-yet-unnamed number five.

Again, there’s definitely some light at the end of this long tunnel. The Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Beige Book report sums up the regional economy as “generally positive, albeit moderate.” Among the sectors reporting steady though moderate growth: manufacturing, retail and business services. Of course, residential real estate remains “in the doldrums” but commercial real estate is showing signs of stability as 2010 drew to a close.

The Beige Book report points out that though the number of single-family homes and condos fell below 2009 levels, median prices continue to march up (except in New Hampshire). We all know real estate sales improvement only comes after general economy improvement, so all this is hopeful.

Developer Joseph Fallon is showing the city today his plans for a 15-story mix of retail and commercial space right on Boston Harbor, adjacent to the new Fed courthouse on Fan Pier. The idea is for retails and shops to occupy the bottom floors, and floors two to seven (that’s six floors) to be laboratory space. Office space is for the upper floors. Does the city want a towering laboratory on the harbor? Would a future condo or rental development want to be sited next to that? We’ll see.

Comparing residential and commercial real estate to each other is like the proverbial apples-to-oranges comparison: They’re not quite the same.

But there are similarities between the two that reflect overall market conditions, just as both apples and oranges require water and sunshine to grow.

So it’s encouraging to see that the planned sale of the One Brigham Circle office-and-retail complex, in the Longwood Medical Area, is seen as a beginning of a potential turnaround in the local commercial market.

If so, it tends to confirm what we’ve being seeing on the housing front in the Boston area.

File under: Good news.

The Bay Villiage Neighborhood Association appears to support transforming 100 Arlington Street from a charter school into an office tower. The choice was never about housing. It was going to be either a hotel or offices.