{"id":12576,"date":"2016-01-26T00:38:11","date_gmt":"2016-01-26T00:38:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12576"},"modified":"2016-01-26T00:38:11","modified_gmt":"2016-01-26T00:38:11","slug":"view-from-atop-the-tower-is-quite-revealing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=12576","title":{"rendered":"View from atop the tower is quite revealing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Amarillo’s downtown district boasts a single structure that\u00a0you could call a “skyscraper.”<\/p>\n

The Chase Tower looms 31 stories over the city and from that top floor one can get a breathtaking view of our spacious landscape.<\/p>\n

When you look east from that tower, though, you don’t have to cast your gaze toward the horizon to see the sure sign of change that’s occurring.<\/p>\n

Look down just a bit at the Civic Center, City Hall, at the Globe-News Center for the Performing Arts and you see some serious work being done.<\/p>\n

You’ll see two vacant lots that have been cleared out. Look a bit south of those two lots and you’ll notice a new structure rising up from the dirt; that would be the new Southwestern Public Service office complex.<\/p>\n

The two lots? They’ll belong to the Embassy Suites convention hotel and a parking garage. Site preparation has begun on those two sites.<\/p>\n

Oh, and just a bit farther east, right across the street from City Hall, you’ll see another parcel of property. At the moment it contains some vacated buildings once occupied by the Coca-Cola Distribution Center; the Coke\u00a0operation has moved to a business park and soon the buildings left behind will be razed to make room for “the ballpark.”<\/p>\n

I have the privilege of looking at all that change each week when I attend the regular Rotary Club of Amarillo meetings at the Amarillo Club atop the Chase Tower.<\/p>\n

I do enjoy seeing the change from week to week that’s occurring on the sites. The SPS building seems just a tiny bit closer to completion; the convention hotel site and the parking garage lot are getting prepped to a little greater degree.<\/p>\n

To be candid, I remain a bit surprised that so much work has been done on these downtown improvement projects. After the tumult associated with this past spring’s municipal election that brought us three new City Council members who didn’t seem as dedicated to the project as their predecessors, I feared the worst. I feared that the work would come to a halt.<\/p>\n

It hasn’t.<\/p>\n

The multipurpose event venue appears to be inching toward its start; the downtown convention hotel and the parking garage are about to take some form.<\/p>\n

Amarillo’s downtown business district is going to reap the benefit of the change that’s coming its way.<\/p>\n

As the center of the city improves, you can take my word for it: So will the rest of Amarillo.<\/p>\n

Yes, the view from the top floor of the Chase Tower looks mighty grand.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n\n

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Amarillo’s downtown district boasts a single structure that\u00a0you could call a “skyscraper.” The Chase Tower looms 31 stories over the city and from that top floor one can get a breathtaking view of our spacious landscape. When you look east from that tower, though, you don’t have to cast your gaze toward the horizon to … Continue reading View from atop the tower is quite revealing<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,9],"tags":[288,290,934,1436,5580,1930,3153],"class_list":["post-12576","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-business-news","category-local-news","tag-amarillo-city-council","tag-amarillo-city-hall","tag-chase-tower","tag-downtown-amarillo","tag-embassy-suites-hotel","tag-globe-news-center-for-the-performing-arts","tag-mpev"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12576","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12576"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12576\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12577,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12576\/revisions\/12577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12576"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12576"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12576"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}