AMARILLO, TEXAS -- Redevelopment plans for the area around the Civic Center could be one step closer to completion. It's taken a year and half to narrow down the search, but on Tuesday, Downtown Amarillo Inc recommended to the city commission, Wallace Bajjali be the private development partner for revitalization in that area. Wallace Bajjali comes with extensive background in redeveloping the downtown's in Sugarland and Waco Texas.
"They've worked in kind of these mid-sized downtown markets. They have done all of that they had all of this experience as well as the ability to bring capital to the table and I think, you know, something that's probably less definable and that is the passion for urban redevelopment," said Melissa Dailey, Executive Director of DAI.
Wallace Bajjali says they're confident in Amarillo's success for redevelopment because of you.
"The people, what we have seen is that this is a community of individuals that will stop at nothing to accomplish it's goals," said David Wallace, CEO of Wallace Bajjali.
"I think what we would like to do is we would like to continue to work with all of these citizen groups to work the with leadership in this community to see what actually does this community want and our role as a private developer is to be able to come to the table to partner with the public sector to accomplish the community goals," adds Wallace.
So what's next? Melissa Dailey says they will wait to see if the city commission moves forward with their recommendation and hopefully enters into contract negotiations. Dailey adds, she hopes it's soon, so they can move forward on things like a hotel and multi-purpose venue.
Several public hearings have taken place on the revitalizing of downtown Amarillo. And we know many of you have opinions.
So what do you think? Post your thoughts on the issue and tells us what you would like to see in downtown Amarillo.
