Nacogdoches City Council working to invigorate downtown development

NACOGDOCHES, Texas (KTRE) - “The whole point of downtown is that you walk from one business to the next, and it’s a big cohesive district, and when you got big vacant buildings, that hurts the businesses for everyone.” says Larissa Philpot with the city of Nacogdoches.

Tuesday night city council approved adding to their existing incentivized development policy, including a reimbursement for restoration and renovation of up to eight dollars per square foot.

“So that people interested in developing downtown understand and realize the city wants to help, the city wants to encourage downtown development.” says Philpot.

The incentives are only for new developments. As for an existing business – the incentive would reimburse the cost of any new fire suppression installation.

Spring and Prince Boutique in downtown has been in service for seven years. Manager Haven Minter says this is good news for everybody.

“So the economic development money is really going to go back right into the community downtown and help all of the locally owned businesses grow. i think with that economic development money growing downtown is really going to bring more tourists.” Philpot continued.

Kim Crisp is the developer of the old Wettermark building that will be bringing in a new restaurant and living spaces to the area. He told us yesterday the chance to receive additional funding was one of the reasons why he took on the project.

“With the possibility of some economic funding which will probably – hopefully be enough to at least put the sprinkler system in. that’s kind of what we’re shooting for.” says Philpot.

Copyright 2023 KTRE. All rights reserved.