66 Business View Magazine - September 2016
Hankook Tires is building a plant on the outskirts of
the city that’s going to employ at least 2,000 people,
and that’s also going to change the way we look and
the way that we do things because those will be good-
paying jobs.”
In addition to downtown development, Lampkin’s of-
fice, which formerly was known as the Department of
Housing and Community Development, still has the
responsibility of creating and carrying out a housing
strategy for the city’s low and moderate income citi-
zens. He relates how a few years ago, the Department
purchased an old trailer park in “a bad part of town.
We bought it, cleaned it up, and turned it into a 23-lot
subdivision,” he says. “We recently turned 17 of those
lots over to a non-profit that’s going to start building
single-family houses there – mostly for veterans. It’s
a planned-unit development with green space, under-
ground utilities, decorative lighting. We’re really excited
about that because it turned a neighborhood around.”
Over the last couple of years, with the help of the
state and some private developers, the city has also
built some 400 housing units - and it’s planning for
more housing starts. “We’re looking at new, market
tax credits and several revenue streams to get things
going,” Lampkin remarks. “It’s got to be a public/pri-
vate partnership. We know that. And we’re looking for
the private side to join us in our endeavors and help
us grow. We’re looking at CRAs (Community Reinvest-
ment Act) and CDFIs, and all avenues where we can
bring some income here. We are also looking at the
housing tax credits for mixed-income housing in the
downtown area. We’ve got a lot of irons in the fire, but
we know we need private financing to get any of these
things done; we’re not going to be able to do it all on
