Business View Magazine | April 2020

251 BUSINESS VIEW MAGAZINE APRIL 2020 HAZELWOOD , MI SSOUR I properties that have been sorely neglected. There are some cute neighborhoods over there, but some really bad houses as well.” Another critical issue still to be tackled is Hazelwood’s lack of a downtown core. “We really don’t have a discernible downtown district and I think it’s something that works against us,” says Zimmerman. “We don’t even really have a community gathering space. The closest thing we have is Howdershell Park, which is where we hold most of our community events—Harvestfest, those kinds of things. We’ve talked to Village Square about designating some of those areas as community gathering spaces, but they’re waiting to see how the development plays out.” Despite these small setbacks in urban planning, the City of Hazelwood is unequivocally open for business. “We encourage business owners to contact us,” says Zimmerman. “We’re confident we’re able to get projects done and our success record, just in the six years that I’ve occupied this post, demonstrates that. We’ve got a had four or five chains open in both of those towns. That’s been a source of frustration. Our number-one goal set forth by the public is the grocery store. Again, we’re having trouble with that because of all the competition just beyond Hazelwood’s city limits.” “And we’re pretty much built out,” Zimmerman continues. “There’s really no land left for housing construction. We have a few infill lots here and there. One of our challenges is to keep the housing stock up. We have a very strong code enforcement program, a rental inspection program, and an occupancy program. Anytime anyone sells and moves, or their lease is up, we go in and inspect the residence to make sure it’s up to code. We really work hard to maintain the value of our housing stock. We’ve identified a couple of areas that could be prime for redevelopment around the East side. It’s been a little slower than we would like. We’re currently working with Habitat for Humanity and the private sector to try and redevelop the