The role of the Regional Development Association in Emporia’s commercial development was a hot topic of discussion Wednesday afternoon at a joint luncheon meeting.
The meeting in the Little Theater was attended by the Emporia City commissioners, Lyon County commissioners, the RDA board and Emporia Enterprises. Jeff Longbine said that about a year and a half ago a commercial development task force was formed with members from the Emporia Area Chamber of Commerce, city of Emporia and Emporia Main Street. This group was charged with the responsibility of studying commercial development in Emporia, which has been sliding. In an earlier presentation, it was shown that Emporia’s pull-factor for commercial development has been on the downslide for the past few years.
“We as a community need to decide, do we have a community that looks at retail development?” Longbine said.
Longbine said the task force did come up with a model that puts the RDA in the lead position when it comes to commercial development.
Bob Agler, city commissioner, said there’s a good argument in leaving it to the RDA.
“If we don’t have the centralization, then we’re not going to be any better off than we have been the past 20 years,” Agler said.
Agler said the citizens of the community are sending Emporia a message by shopping away from Emporia.
“Storefronts are shutting down and that is an announcement by the citizens of the community,” Agler said. “We have a lot of people spending money out of town.”
Agler added that missing storefronts need to be developed and a group needs to be responsible for finding out about retailers and seeing whether they’ll be a good fit for the Emporia community.
“We need an entity like the RDA that would go out and find the facts,” Agler said. “The best way to delay commercial development is to go by word of mouth as opposed to going out and finding the facts.”
Longbine said the issue isn’t just with Emporians, it’s also with surrounding counties, who are not coming to Emporia to shop.
“We have an opportunity to ask ‘how can we get them back?’” Longbine said.
After a long discussion that went back and forth across the room several times, it was decided that the issue needed more study during an upcoming work session.