$900 Million Facelift For Amarillo
With ambitious plans for downtown underway the City of Amarillo isn't sitting still. Amarillo is considering over $900 million in improvements across the city.
It's called the Capital Improvement Plan. All city department heads and managers were tasked with foreseeing the needs of their area of responsibility with the city over the next five years. If successful the plan would virtually involve all major components of the city.
Here's where the nearly one billion dollars will be allocated:
Streets/Drainage - $276 million
Utilities - $169 million
Civic Center Expansion - $166 million
Parks and Recreation - $124 million
Facilities - $27 million
Public Safety - $23 million
Airport - $21 million
Information Technologies - $20 million
Solid Waste - $16 million
Traffic - $4 million
The city manager has been tasked to prioritize what improvements are needed immediately, what can wait, and what the city can do without. Before the priorities are finalized the city will host public meetings and reach out to citizens online to determine what the voters perceive to be the top needs
The city is expected to release a schedule of public events related to the Capital Improvement Plan over the next couple of weeks.
Anyone can come up with a plan costing anything but if the money isn't there it's simply a dream. The city will look at every source of funding available including utility fees, airport grant money, and possibly a bond election. If there is to be a vote on full or partial funding for the plan the city will have until August 22nd to get on the November ballot.