{"id":6004,"date":"2014-06-24T03:20:51","date_gmt":"2014-06-24T03:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/highplainsblogger.wordpress.com\/?p=6004"},"modified":"2014-06-24T03:20:51","modified_gmt":"2014-06-24T03:20:51","slug":"will-they-ever-start-busting-up-some-cement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/?p=6004","title":{"rendered":"Will they ever start busting up some cement?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Potter County is on board, finally, with a plan that is supposed to get downtown Amarillo’s rebirth started. Maybe. Eventually. Or will it ever get done?<\/p>\n

http:\/\/www.connectamarillo.com\/news\/story.aspx?id=1061498#.U6jrcFJOWt8<\/p>\n

County commissioners voted 3-2 Monday to grant a 10-year tax abatement for the Coca-Cola distribution plant, which will relocate to a business park near Rick Husband Amarillo International Airport.<\/p>\n

Now construction can begin — one should hope — on a new ballpark downtown that will go where the current Coke distribution plant is located.<\/p>\n

Given the closeness of the vote on the commission, one understands the contentiousness of this issue.<\/p>\n

City planners had hoped, I’m guessing, to be a lot farther along on this project than they have gotten.<\/p>\n

The County Courthouse project is done; the city has rebuilt some curbs at intersections; it has knocked down the old jail; it has welcomed a downtown business hotel in the old Fisk Building; a new convenience store has opened up across the street from a new bank complex.<\/p>\n

But the Big Three of the downtown redevelopment effort — the stadium, parking garage and a new convention hotel — haven’t yet begun. It’s been more than three years since the city signed the deal with the Wallace-Bajjali development firm to spearhead a $113 million project that is supposed to occur with a single dime of public tax money being spent.<\/p>\n

Officials connected to the project keep saying they have a lot i’s to dot and t’s to cross. It’s complicated, we’re told.<\/p>\n

I’m as anxious as anyone else to see the downtown project move forward. However, I’m getting a little nervous about the time it’s taken to line up all the elements.<\/p>\n

I’m ready to start seeing some pavement being busted up downtown.<\/p>\n\n

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Potter County is on board, finally, with a plan that is supposed to get downtown Amarillo’s rebirth started. Maybe. Eventually. Or will it ever get done? http:\/\/www.connectamarillo.com\/news\/story.aspx?id=1061498#.U6jrcFJOWt8 County commissioners voted 3-2 Monday to grant a 10-year tax abatement for the Coca-Cola distribution plant, which will relocate to a business park near Rick Husband Amarillo International … Continue reading Will they ever start busting up some cement?<\/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":[1],"tags":[276,1438,1444,3677,4823],"class_list":["post-6004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-amarillo","tag-downtown-amarillo-inc","tag-downtown-redevelopment","tag-potter-county","tag-tirz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6004","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=6004"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6004\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=6004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=6004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/highplainsblogger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=6004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}