After two very well attended meetings — the committee has set some basic goals:
- To recommend business area locations — some new
- To recommend rezoning where needed
- To work with land owners/developers/designers to create a new business area, extending what we currently know as the court square to include several new blocks, maintaining the court square/City Hall/banks block as the municipal end of the business district
- To work with other committees to share our “overflow” ideas that are outside our committee’s parameters
- To keep in mind that we need to be unique in whatever we do in order to separate ourselves from surrounding areas.
This committee has been meeting on a weekly basis since its inception. We are composed of a variety of business owners— current and retired, prospective land developers, architects, contractors, some downtown property owners, community and non-profit volunteers, homeowners, elected officials, garden club members, historic downtown church members, and just simply some people who love Mayfield and want to see it rebuild stronger and better than it ever has been.
We are encouraging thinking “outside the box” that we have been placed in as a community with a rich heritage and deeply set emotional ties to locations, buildings and ways of doing things. We acknowledge the past visionaries and appreciate what our community was because of generations of leaders and investments before the tornado. We emphasize “was” because we believe that while we will never be the same — we now can and will be better. We cannot “rebuild the past” but must think in terms of laying some foundations for an amazing city for our future generations. In a sense, we are where our forefathers were — massive areas of open space — on which to create a vision for the future.
The tornado — though devastating — has given us a clean slate and an opportunity unlike anything we have ever had before — and unlike other communities in our end of Western Kentucky —to do great things. This committee is excited to be a part of the great things that are to come. – Teresa Cantrell, Committee Chair
