Business View Civil and Municipal | September 2022

92 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 9 focused on right now.” On a smaller scale, Dallas is also placing focus on its downtown. The city is in the process of creating a National Historic District downtown to celebrate the city’s historic architecture, which is centered around its traditional 19th century Courthouse Square. “It’s a great, traditional downtown square kind of feel. The bones are in place, there’s good infrastructure, we have wide, clean sidewalks and great pedestrian lighting and places to sit and trees to get shade under and all those nice things that people expect in a downtown,” Mitchell says. However, what they are lacking is the vibrancy on the business side. He adds, “For example, we have a couple of great tap houses and we have a wine tasting room, but we don’t have a microbrewery. So that’s one of the things that would add to the inventory of our downtown. We’d also like to have something along the lines of an ice cream shop where you can go after a movie. There’s a historic cinema in our downtown where there are first run movies being shown, but then where do you go after the movie with your family? So there are some pieces missing in the puzzle and lots of opportunities.” The downtown’s occupancy rate is high and turnover is low, so Dallas is being very selective about where it will put new businesses when they arise, and how it will encourage new businesses to settle there. They have used American Rescue Plan Act funds to assist building owners in renovating their historic commercial buildings and are working to partner public funds with private interest to help get those buildings refurbished and occupied once again. “It’s an ongoing process with a typical main street scenario where you have constant churn with small businesses and you’re trying to create opportunities for new businesses to locate,” Mitchell says. “So there’s lots of work to be done, but that’s the direction we are going in.” The Power of Local Willamette Valley Fiber is proud to be the go-to source for fiber-to-the-home internet and voice services in Dallas, Oregon. FIBER INTERNET • VOICE • BUSINESS 988 SE Jefferson Dallas, OR 97338 | 503-837-1700 | www.wvalleyfiber.com Powered by