Often when I meet new people, they tell me about what downtown used to be like 15 years ago. They talk about how empty it was and marvel at our night-and-day transformation. The city and private developers have been hard at work investing almost $90 million downtown, and dedicated volunteers have given more than 90,000 hours of their time to the revitalization effort. Almost every week I am contacted by someone who wants to open a business here. more