nacluth said:
Good ideas. Downtown is so much better than it was 10 years ago that I'm pretty happy with the direction it's been heading (though the Liberty Bell news is disheartening). My guess is the new 9 Flags bar is killing it right now, and we just can't support two nice bars easily.
A few years ago Nac started rebranding with "Texas Begins Here". Apparently Texas starts here was being used somewhere else. It hasn't fully become our official slogan because there's push back from the people that love "Oldest Town in Texas." Gotta keep San Augustine in line you know. Our CVB has been doing better, but like SFA athletics need to take the next step into a big time tourist town. Keep the ideas flowing.
Totally agree. Downtown is on the upswing and has been making slow incremental improvements. One of the things I'm struck by when I travel is the number of foreign visitors. Sure, national parks have them in spades, but we were at a small ghostown outside Barstow last weekend for their bluegrass festival, & I'd estimate 25% of the visitors where foreign tourists based on languages spoken.
With the National Forests so close, I'd love to turn Nac into that kind of destination, where when people want to see Texas, seeing the oldest town in Texas is high on their list. Personally, I'd also love to see those National Forests turned into a true National Park since those things practically market themselves, but that's a different discussion for a different day.
The Liberty Bell news is disheartening, but I hope somebody will take advantage of the renovated building & launch something new quickly. One thing that struck me when we were in South Boston, VA, a small town in the middle of nowhere, is that everystore had turned their walls into a boutique of some sort. So you'd get dinner, but they also had country chic items to buy, or bows for little girls or something. It was a very unique way of generating two kinds of traffic that fed off each other.
But it's definitely headed in the right direction with the Fredonia renovation & other stores popping up. Nac/SFA have so much potential to be the kind of nice, small hometowns that people tired of the rat race flock to. That'd be a big win for both parties.