Galena to redevelop more of its downtown

The city of Galena, Kansas, soon will begin a redevelopment of the rest of its downtown — which includes Route 66 — after a similar project about six years ago helped revitalize the area.

KSNF-TV filed this report about the project:

Most of the work will be installing new sidewalks and street lights. The station reported:

“We’re going to be redoing the sidewalks, putting in the rest of the street lights and we’re excited about finishing up the next four blocks of Main street here in Galena that’s Route 66,” says Lance Nichols.

Mayor Lance Nichols says the work will be paid for using a community development block grant, and it’s designed to give the next round of new businesses a head start on success. […]

Nichols says with thousands of people from around the world passing through Galena each year thanks to the mother road, the economic future of the town is tied to giving those people a reason to stop.

“The first few phases have been successful. We’ve had people move in to some of the vacant buildings, we’ve had a number of businesses open up, we had three or four businesses open up just recently,” says Nichols.

The mayor said the work will be finished by the end of summer, weather permitting.

Previous mayor Dale Oglesby shepherded the downtown revitalization project in 2012. I suspect he was motivated by two things.

First, the opening of 4 Women on the Route (now Cars on the Route) in late 2006 brought hundreds, if not thousands, of tourists to downtown to see the real-life inspiration of Mater from the “Cars” movie.

Second, lead-mine subsidence caused a century-old building that housed the Green Parrot Tavern to partially collapse, leading to its condemnation in 2007.

In short, Oglesby saw a need to get those tourists to stay longer in Galena, and a more attractive downtown that would draw new businesses would do it. The city’s investment in downtown also soothed the nerves a prospective business owners rattled by the Green Parrot debacle.

(Image by Renee Charles of a revitalized downtown in Galena, Kansas, in 2012)

One thought on “Galena to redevelop more of its downtown

  1. Glad to hear they are working on it. Yesterday, on the Illinois Route 66 Motor Tour, we stopped in McLean, Illinois, and that downtown looks a lot better.

    It was hard to get the guys on the tour out of a place there that had an old-timey arcade with all those early video games like Pac-Man and those pinball machines.

    And, they were all in working order and eating up those quarters.

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