Empty Buildings Hurt Business on Butternut, City Tries to Revamp

It's a normal sight to those driving along Butternut Street. Empty buildings, boarded up windows and doors and signs that used to promote businesses that are long gone.

"Ff course the economy has effected the amount of businesses we've had in Abilene," said Neil Hall, owner of Bowtech for Health. 

Neil's store is surrounded by empty buildings, creating a negative impact.

"Because as people go down the street they kind of see an empty spaces that indicate that there's nothing  there, nothing going on," he explained.

"It's still a very busy street, lots of traffic. So we chose to stay here," said Jimmy Campbell. 

Jimmy owns Procter Automotive, a business that has been around since the 1940s. The shop has fixed up it's appearance, which has already made a difference.

"I have lots of our customers that are going 'Wow you've really fixed the place up.'So I think aesthetics are meaningful to a lot of people," Jimmy explained.

The city has also gotten in on the efforts to clean up Butternut and reopen those empty stores.

"If you go into areas like that and make physical improvements, improvements to the road, start encouraging nicer buildings, better landscaping, that it raises the bar for development in an area," said director of planning and development Jon James. 

In his 11 years on Butternut, Niel has also seen a few attempts to fix up Butternut Street. But he said the help of the city will help in ways other business associations could not. 

"We have a lot more viability that can come about," Niel explained. "So it's a lot more likely to accomplish what we're looking for than what we've done before."

The city and the Butternut Business Association are still in the beginning of planning, but hope to also improve the roads and make the street more pedestrian friendly.