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Downtown Victoria is our unique calling card

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  • Wes Bloomquist •
  • Originally published January 20, 2009 at 8:37 p.m., updated January 20, 2009 at 8:37 p.m.

Editor, the Advocate:

I have been reading with interest about the reworking of the infrastructure downtown. While I appreciate the idea to spend as little of our tax dollars on this project as we can, i.e. the sidewalks, I think we will be missing a real opportunity to make a difference that would pay off in dividends for decades to come.

The Chamber of Commerce is in a process of coming up with a brand for Victoria. What are we known for? What brings people to town? There are no better dollars coming to Victoria than tourist dollars. What can we do to attract tourists to Victoria? Not even to consider what it does for the quality of life for those of us who live here and want to be proud of our home and surroundings.

When we go out of town, one of our rules is we cannot eat at any place that has a place here. So all of the major chains are out. We are looking for places to eat that have a signature dish that makes you want to go back again and again. What is Victoria's signature? What would bring people to town? We have the malls and national retail chains, but so does everyone else.

What are the things that could be developed that would bring folks to town that is uniquely ours? Of course we have the educational and medical facilities, but for me one of things that should be developed more is downtown.

We have such a great historic courthouse, newly restored vintage bandstand and such a fine downtown square that are sites to see. People love historic and nostalgic buildings and certainly town squares. Having said all of that, does it make sense to not carry the project all of the way through that is congruent with what has been accomplished so far? Patched sidewalks? That makes no sense to me. What does make sense is to make our downtown area as attractive as we can. It is a signature for us. Certainly we can be functional with patched sidewalks. But for me, that is shortsighted and not investing for the future. This is an investment that will pay off for years to come. I am all for making downtown look as great as we can. It is for the benefit of us all. It's our home, so let's make it look as good as possible.

Dr. Buddy Lee

Victoria



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Comments

  • cynicista08 cynicista08 Report a ViolationReport a Violation Permalink  | 

    I love! that someone has spoken up about this! And I am not surprised that it was Dr. Buddy Lee, he is my dentist (though I haven't seen him in awhile, shh) and a very intelligent man. Back to the point, Victoria has no character, yes I said it, none whatsoever. I have lived in various cities across Texas because of college and have had the pleasure of seeing many and then come back to Victoria and it's sad. I was thinking about this last night actually, years ago, Victoria was a beautiful city and had character. Those "mom and pop" businesses thrived, not only in the downtown area but on North Navarro. Not only those local businesses, but others, who remembers when the Laurent Mall was in business, Airline shopping center was filled with boutiques like Gourmet Cache or when we had an Albertson's???? My point is, Victoria has lost it's character!!! It saddens me to see Victoria is growing towards Halletsville direction with national retail chains, who by the way employ some of the rudest people?!! Seriously, I can go to the register, checkout, and not hear one word, forget about a 'thank you!' it's just not in their vocabulary. Downtown Victoria is our unique calling card, just as Dr. Buddy Lee said. Not! new sidewalks.... yes, we can beautify Downtown, plant more flowers.... bring people to it. Give breaks/incentives to small business owners already down there for advertisement to direct business down there.  The sidewalks are fine! We need to take more businesses down there, offer aerobics classes out in the park, art classes out on the square, something!!!
    And I will be sooooo disgusted if the rumors of ANOTHER Walgreen's is true and set to be built anywhere near Downtown... like we don't have enough!? What they need to do instead of building more stores is hire more efficient employees!!!!

    January 21, 2009 at 10:12 a.m.