Crescent City: Tore Up From the Floor Up — and Looking Good!

Every time I drive into town lately, I feel like I need to keep one eye on the road and the other on the buildings. I’ll pass something, do a double take and think, “What the heck are they doing now?”

Crescent City seems to have caught a serious case of construction fever—and I have to admit, it’s exciting.

Take Burger King. One day I drove by and discovered the place was practically tore up from the floor up! My first thought was, “Are they closing down?” With all the recent talk about the United States importing millions of pounds of beef from Argentina, I wondered for a second if the King had finally packed his crown and left town.

Not so fast.

Apparently, Burger King is simply getting a facelift, and I can hardly wait to see the finished product.

Travel a little farther onto Northcrest Drive and another construction doctor appears to be performing major surgery on the old mattress/furniture store. Walls are changing, work is underway, and naturally my investigative curiosity has kicked in. I haven't discovered exactly what is going in there yet—but you can bet I'm watching.

Then there is Third Street.

For years, many of us have wondered when downtown Crescent City would begin showing signs of new life. Now another facelift is underway at the building where the Child Support Division used to be.

Third Street always brings back one particular Christmas memory for me. I was baking cookies and listening to Renee on KCRE when she enthusiastically announced, “Come on downtown and experience Miracle on Third Street!”

It sounded fantastic.

I put the cookies on hold and headed downtown, imagining festive storefronts, Christmas lights and people strolling along the sidewalks enjoying the holiday spirit.

Well, it was a miracle on Third Street all right—a miracle I didn't get mugged.

Thankfully, times are changing.

With the construction, improvements and beautiful flowers beginning to brighten our downtown, I have renewed hope that this Christmas could represent the beginning of something much bigger for Crescent City.

And if I could rub that genie bottle myself, I would bring back the old-fashioned Christmas lights strung from one side of the street to the other, just like they were in the 1960s and '70s. Give downtown that warm, small-town Christmas feeling that makes people want to park the car, walk the streets, visit the businesses and stay awhile.

The transformation doesn't stop there. The Cultural Center and surrounding curbsides are undergoing their own facelift. I have to give credit to the City Manager and everyone involved. Somebody rubbed a genie bottle, because projects we have talked about for years are suddenly becoming reality.

Then there are the new apartment complexes. Several of them look amazing, and they bring something our community desperately needs: housing, investment and another sign of hope.

Will everything be finished by Christmas? Probably not.

But by golly, Crescent City is making it happen.

Construction is inconvenient. It is noisy. It creates detours, dust and plenty of opportunities to drive past something and wonder, “What the heck happened there?”

But construction also means somebody is investing. Somebody is building. Somebody believes there is a future worth preparing for.

For the first time in a long time, Crescent City isn't just talking about change.

We can actually see it happening.