{"id":17318,"date":"2016-09-29T23:02:10","date_gmt":"2016-09-29T23:02:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17318"},"modified":"2016-09-30T10:52:24","modified_gmt":"2016-09-30T10:52:24","slug":"wt-expanding-its-footprint-in-amarillo","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=17318","title":{"rendered":"WT expanding its footprint in Amarillo"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Given that I don’t get downtown much these days, I am struck by the progress I keep seeing at the site of an old office building that’s being transformed into something quite different.<\/p>\n

Downtown Amarillo is going to home to a branch campus of West Texas A&M University.\u00a0The Amarillo Economic Development Corporation\u00a0purchased the old Commerce Building at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Tyler Street.\u00a0WT will move its downtown campus operations out of the 31-story Chase Tower a block north and plans to take possession of its new downtown campus after raising sufficient funds to pay for rehabilitating the building.<\/p>\n

When I heard of the purchase, my initial reaction was: Hey, that’s a pretty modern building. All they’ll have to do is knock out a few walls, re-do some of the wiring and plumbing, fill the place up with office equipment and classroom accessories.<\/p>\n

Presto! Ring the school bell and let classes begin!<\/p>\n

Not so fast, padnuh.<\/p>\n

They’re knocking the daylights out of the Commerce Building location. The exterior of the structure is going to look totally different, near as I can tell. Lord knows what the inside will look like.<\/p>\n

I am aware of the questions raised about the sale and purchase of the site. I know about the questions regarding the appraised value of the property and whether it was inflated.<\/p>\n

That’s not the point here.<\/p>\n

My point is to wish WT well as it continues to improve and increase its footprint in downtown Amarillo.<\/p>\n

By having a stand-alone structure with the university emblem displayed prominently to motorists and other visitors to downtown, it establishes its name and brand in the Panhandle’s unofficial “capital city.”<\/p>\n

My understanding is that the opening date has been pushed back a bit. No worries there, either.<\/p>\n

As long as it gets done and opens\u00a0its doors\u00a0to students, I’m more than OK with the progress we keep seeing in downtown Amarillo’s redevelopment and renewal.<\/p>\n\n

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Given that I don’t get downtown much these days, I am struck by the progress I keep seeing at the site of an old office building that’s being transformed into something quite different. Downtown Amarillo is going to home to a branch campus of West Texas A&M University.\u00a0The Amarillo Economic Development Corporation\u00a0purchased the old Commerce … Continue reading WT expanding its footprint in Amarillo<\/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":[6251,9],"tags":[155,1436,5312],"class_list":["post-17318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-education-news","category-local-news","tag-aedc","tag-downtown-amarillo","tag-wtamu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17318","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=17318"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17318\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17329,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17318\/revisions\/17329"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}