CALDWELL - Caldwell Mayor Garret Nancolas delivered his annual State of the City address Tuesday afternoon.
The mayor hopes the excitement over all that's happening with the downtown revitalization project will encourage more visits from out-of-towners.
The successes surrounding revitalization was the focus of his address to the community.
KTVB met up with the mayor in downtown Caldwell to talk about the big changes.
“It is just so exciting to finally see all of this happening, to see downtown blossoming, the hopes the dreams, the dreams the visions we had plans for and hoped for are actually coming true,” said Nancolas.
A new movie theater, restaurants and the Indian Creek Plaza are just a few. The mayor says it's all thanks to a lot of hard work from many people - all with the same goal.
“There were so many of us that recognized that we need to create that excitement, that center of downtown, that heartbeat of the community again, so these projects are helping us do that,” he said.
But it didn't happen overnight.
“We've often said gold luck happens when preparation meets opportunity, this is the perfect example of that,” said Nancolas. “We did open the creek in 2007, which as you said was not great timing, we didn't know what 2008, 2009 were going to bring. But because we just keep investing in downtown, we kept working with the creek, we kept working with the train depot, we made investments downtown, so that when the opportunity came along we were prepared, we were ready.”
“The future is so exciting to think about! The new business park. All the jobs that have been created out there. All of that is so important to the success of downtown.”
“A lot great things happening, a lot of positive things happening, but what are some of the challenges Caldwell maybe facing in the next year or so?” asked KTVB.
"Well certainly one of the challenges we face is any growing community,” said Nancolas. “You face challenges of keeping up with infrastructure, making sure we do maintain that safety; that low crime index, so there's always those budgetary issues of making sure we have enough safeguards, personnel that we can build streets and maintain them, that we have capacity at the treatment plant water capacity. Yet we still have capacity to grow because we have invested. As these businesses come and the industry we have capacity to handle that. Our goal again is to make sure we stay ahead of the game."
Seeing his vision become reality is a mix of emotions.
“Rewarding, grateful, humbling, exciting; all of those emotions mixed into one. So that's the best way I can describe it. It's just awesome. Just plain awesome.”