BLADENBORO — A cog in the wheel of progress in the restoration of downtown Bladenboro is moving forward thanks to the board approval of an ordinance on Monday.
A revitalization project is aimed to give a rebirth to the heart of the town that was destroyed by flooding from Hurricane Florence. Chuck Heustess, the Bladen County director of economic development, has said that he estimates the decline in businesses to be as much 90 percent.
“This modifies the nonresidential building maintenance code,” said Town Administrator Blake Proctor. “This adds a new part to the ordinance the removal of the dilapidated buildings and structures either by the property owner or the town.”
The recent ordinance addition clearly states the process for appeal, as well as the protocol for the condemnations.
Proctor stressed that this is crucial to getting the process started so that once a particular building that needs to be removed can be taken down and the space freed up for the new proposed business center. The building would be built to suit the tenants, and Heustess has requested that people contact economic development to see about getting into the space.
“I have had a couple of people call and ask about the ongoing process,” Heustess said. “I have heard of a couple interested in the construction and what that is going to bring to the table.”
The next step he said is getting Boost the ’Boro and town to try to find additional ways to canvass the community and see what kind of entrepreneurs are out there.
“We want to find out what kind of potential businesses and fill the gap,” he said. “We haven’t had a strong response so far, but we haven’t started the grassroots effort yet.”
Optimism is still there, and he’s hoping that with everyone working together they can come up with some ideas to continue to grow the downtown area and bring it back to life.
Two other ordinances were passed Monday night as well, one was a simple change of electric golf carts to electric and gas-powered golf carts.
The third ordinance was to amend wording in a section for flood damage prevention. The wording for that was pulled from both state and federal emergency management agencies.