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For Business Location: In Walking Distance of Lindsey Wilson? Huge announcements are expected from Holladay Place in the next days or weeks, but Jametown Street and Downtown Columbia, both written off at one time when the bypass opened and the new shopping center was built, are in the middle of boom times. The catalyst: Lindsey Wilson College. The arrival of students has transformed the local economy. Now 'In Walking Distance of Lindsey Wilson' is the ruling benchmark which is driving the frenzied development of Downtown Columbia and Jamestown Hill retailing, now very hot retailing centers. The transformation is remarkable By Ed Waggener Predictions of the demise of Jamestown Street with the building of Holladay Place and the Western Bypass have proven highly inaccurate. The area form the Square to the Parkway, out Russell Road, and the Hurt Street area are in the midst of boom times. Columbia businessman Mike Stephens thinks he knows the key. "Everybody knows that Lindsey Wilson College has provided the spark for the Columbia economy," he said. And, he said, he's willing to let everyone in on a secret, "What new businesses are asking, whether local ones or national chains, is for a 'Yes' to the question, 'Is it in Walking Distance of Lindsey Wilson College?'" That, he says, is why he thinks the intersection of Hurt and Jamestown Street and Jamestown Street and Russell RD, are the hottest properties in Adair County. Stephens is also one of the biggest land and property owners in the area (which readers need to know) but he wants everyone to know that he's impressed with all the development in Adair County, including that at Holladay Place where development continues at an impressive pace, and is destined to quicken as the shortcut between Elizabethtown and Chattanooga, which includes KY 55, the Adair County Veterans Memorial Highway, and KY 61 South, is no longer the nation's best kept secret. Stephens says that besides being in Walking Distance of college classrooms on The Hill, the Jamestown Hill area is getting a tremendous boost from from the Lindsey Wilson Sports Park. He cites one national chain representative he took to Raider Stadium, to a higher level of the Stadium, and told him to look out over the Louie B. Nunn Parkway and the views beyond, and asked him to consider the visual impact on parkway travelers. The site acquisition representative told him that he had seen equally large facilities at similar colleges and universities, but, Stephens quoted him as saying, "I've never seen, anywhere in America, a stadium of this quality, one so fine." Stephens said that once the representatives choose a spot, it's seldom a question of land cost whether or not they come. It has to meet all their criteria. One project is in limbo, he said, because the site is three cars short of the the minimum number of parking spaces offered by a single acquisition. He's still hopeful that the deal will go through on that one, where under an acre of land is priced at $550,000. Property at the corner of Russell Road and Jamestown Street may be the very most valuable land in Adair County. It's the epicenter of the "Within Walking Distance of Lindsey Wilson College," boom. One chain prospect was prepared to go over $1 million for a block of land on the town side, he said. "The owner wouldn't consider selling, wouldn't name a price." Another chain is putting together a block south of the location, and local guesstimates are that four pieces of property painstaking put together by various local real estate agents will go for over slightly over $750,000, altogether. By contrast, A recent acquisition by the Columbia/Adair County Utilities District for more Holladay Place land, was less than a third that value. The buyers' concern, Stephens said, was primarily predicated on the site being readily accessible to foot traffic from Lindsey Wilson College. Stephens is involved, now, in the development of a new medical office building in his Office Park complex, which is full and busy. It will be called Family First Medical Center, and is being built by Stephens and Dr. Gary Partin, M.D. and Dr. Partin's wife, nurse practitioner Dr. Beth Partin. He's also developing lots on Hurt Street, where some dilapidated houses are being razed and the lots are being filled to Hurt Street level by Danny Pyles Excavating. Stephens said that while some may assume that the Hurt Street projects are tied to the Family First Medical center, they are totally separate projects.. For the community, Stephens thinks there is another important consideration. "We need development where the property immediately helps shoulder its part of the tax base," he said. The city, the county, and the school system have to have a tax base, he said, for new development to really work for all of the community. "In the long run," he said, "it won't be good for our area if we get everything based on local tax incentives. That," he said, "puts an unfair burden on the rest of us." Friendly, healthy rivalry with Holladay Place There's a friendly, healthy rivalry on Jamestown Street with the Holladay Place Development. Stephens said he wishes them well, but always jokes with the developers there that it's an out of town trip to Holladay Place to get there from "Columbia," even though the center is, at least technically, in town. At least within the city limits. The future will tell. In all likelihood both shopping areas will develop, by Adair County standards in a spectacular fashion: Holladay Place because of its fortuitous placement on the national shortcut highway and the prospect that a new interchange will be built on the parkway on Greensburg Road in Edmonton and that the Parkway system around the town be completed with the building of the short Eastern Bypass, and Downtown Columbia/Jamestown Hill because it is so strategically located in Walking Distance of Lindsey Wilson. Only time will tell whether the zoning variances granted Holladay Place, which made it so singularly dependent on individual vehicle access, will have been a long term plus. For the public, there's no question that building sidewalks and accommodating bicycles, golf carts and other slow moving vehicles is the more economical approach. But the having good Highway Systems remains the common wisdom approach to economic development. Stephens said he wishes the developers at Holladay Place the best, and hopes and believes that it will succeed in a grand fashion, a position shared by most Adair Countians, to have the best of both worlds: A completed bypass system around the entire City, and concentration on traditional values, in a quieter, slower paced, pedestrian based economy immediately around the urban campus. As Stephens sees it, there's never been a brighter time for Columbia and Adair County, with growth coming from all areas, including developments by his competition. This story was posted on 2011-08-25 08:46:01
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