Avondale Estates recently held its first joint meeting between city commissioners and the re-constituted Downtown Development Authority featuring four new members named last month. They spent 45 minutes listening to Linda Harris and Catherine Lee of Decatur’s community and economic development team discuss the evolution of that city’s downtown commercial and residential district.
“Nothing happens overnight,” Harris assured the assembly. “It took us about 30 years to reach our goal. It’s an incremental process.”
Avondale wants to fund its DDA, thereby giving it power to buy and develop property and market the city’s downtown among other things. Avondale currently has about 20 underdevelopoed or undeveloped acres in its downtown vicinity.
“I hear people saying Avondale doesn’t want to be like Decatur, and they shouldn’t,” Harris said after the meeting. “But they have to figure out what their image is, what they want to market. Is it their Tudor district or their residential community?
“One thing for sure,” she added, “they have more festivals than we did in the beginning, and that gives them a good foundation.”
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