It’s been more than a year since a downtown building collapsed and more than six months since a fire gutted multiple buildings, which temporarily displaced 173 workers and 9 businesses.
Murray Main Street Director Deana Wright compiled information from each building owner and the property valuation administrator to determine downtown’s total loss, which is upwards of $2.6 million in real property value, $721,432 in inventory, and $285,100 in daily income. Wright said some businesses are unable to re-establish.
“We lost 4 businesses that will not be back downtown for various reasons,” Wright said. “That in itself impacts us because each business that’s downtown is important to the community as a whole.”
Wright has been working with local economic organizations to fight the perception that downtown is a risky investment.
“The problem is that people think that downtown is dying and it is not,” Wright said. “We need, maybe it’s not the people in Murray, maybe it’s someone on the outside, if they take the chance and they reinvest their time, their effort, their money, it really could push the excitement of downtown again.”
The report is an effort to attract state and national level aid. Wright said she will outline the recovery outlook in the first half of the year.
