The New Year brings some new faces to downtown Buckeye and the Main Street Coalition. First of all the leadership of the Main Street Coalition has changed with the recent board elections. The new officers and board members include:
- Karla Walters - President
- Chuck Kupcik - Vice-President/Pres. Elect
- Charlene Powers-Broadbent - Secretary
- Alice Dryer - Treasurer
- David Calvert
- Tony Youngker
- Murel Stephens
- Bill Hartung
- Paul Winslow
- Jay Broadbent – Past-President/Ex-Officio
We say a big thank you to Jay for his 2 years of service as the President of the Main Street Coalition. Main Street is entirely volunteer driven, with the exception of the 1 staff person. All of the people listed volunteer their time to help make downtown Buckeye a better place. We thank them all and know that it says a lot about them as a person that they are willing to volunteer for their community.
We saw a lot of new faces on Main Street in January with the Buckeyes in Buckeye Day celebration. It was fun to meet new friends and have some laughs with some nice “Nuts” from Ohio. Even though they didn’t win the football game, it was still a lot of fun! The Coalition also says a huge “Thank You!” to all the volunteers from across the community of Buckeye who lent a hand to make the event a true success! Go Bucks!
Another new face in downtown Buckeye is the complete renovation of the old Buckeye Cleaners building on North 4th Street.(behind Chase Bank) Adolfson & Peterson Construction is doing the entire redo of the building and plans to open a new “Buckeye Office” in that location once the work is complete. Main Street is excited that a company is willing to come into downtown Buckeye and do what we call a “total adaptive reuse” of an empty building. Renovation and reuse are two principals of the National Main Street Program of which The Buckeye Main Street Coalition is a part. Thanks to A & P for their commitment to downtown Buckeye!
The Nels Benson/Raney House project continues to move ahead. It’s a bit slower that we thought it would be, but progress is being made. We’re within a few days of having final plans in place to get the bids for the foundation so we can get the house set down. Once that occurs we’ll be able to begin remodeling the house into office space for the Chamber of Commerce, Main Street and the community welcome center. We also hope to have some meeting space within the house and possibly some museum type space. Community input is always welcome as we plan for the future of that historic ranch house.
New faces will be seen in the new restaurants that are getting closer to opening everyday in downtown. We hope to welcome soon to downtown the new Memphis Best BBQ in the old Monroe Street Deli Building, Palermo’s Pizza next to the Millstone Cafe and Duner’s Pizza in the new building with the yellow, wavy awning.
We encourage you to stop downtown and see the new faces of Main Street as well as volunteer to help create some new faces.