City to meet with building owners in wake of Clinton tragedy

By Ralph Pokorny

Nevada Daily Mail

Many of the buildings in Nevada's downtown area are about the same age as the building in Clinton that collapsed two weeks ago; and the city of Nevada has decided to take a proactive approach to prevent any similar problems from occurring here.

Ron Clow, planning director, said that he has sent letters to all of the property owners of buildings on the Square and one block each direction, inviting them to meet with him at 5:30 tonight in the city council chambers, in the public safety building at the corner of Ash and Austin, to talk about doing a walk-through of their buildings to identify any visible problems.

"We want to avoid a recurrence," he said.

If visible problems are found, he said that he would recommend that the property owner contact a structural engineer to see if there may also be any hidden problems.

"I'm hoping to get a pretty good response from the owners," he said.

Clow said that he also wants to take advantage of this meeting to talk to them about a new downtown revitalization program the state of Missouri has recently enacted that may be able to help with downtown improvements.

The Downtown Revitalization and Economic Assistance for Missouri brings together the resources of the Missouri Department of Economic Development, the Missouri Development Finance Board and the Missouri Housing Development Commission to help selected communities revitalize their downtown.

According to the Web site for the program, the DREAM Initiative proposes to give the six to 10 selected communities access to a variety of technical and financial assistance programs to accomplish their downtown revitalization plans.

Each of the selected communities will be designated as a DREAM community for a period of three years. The communities will be selected based not only on their ability to make the necessary investment, but also sustain that effort based on the following criteria: Communities that have either developed or will develop a plan for revitalization of their downtown; Communities presenting a comprehensive approach to downtown revitalization, rather than single project events; Communities with the capacity to take on a multi-dimensional initiative and Communities with the ability to attract and maintain private investment.

More information on this program can be found on the Internet at: http://www.-dream.mo.gov.