A few months ago several buildings along our main thoroughfare were razed to make way for urban renewal.

One of the buildings was a beautiful stucco building with a red tile roof. Monument Car Parts moved to a vacant building a few blocks away.

This picture was taken last December and you can see the beautiful silhouettes of the large trees. These four buildings were also slated for demolition.

I never visited the Ultimate Snack Shack, but had always liked the look of the little building.

The buildings stayed fenced up and vacant until the middle of July. Then in a little over a day the entire lot of them were quickly razed. You can see that the big beautiful trees were also removed.

One nice thing though, you can now see the icon water tower that is near city hall.

So, what was put up in place of these buildings?

In just over three months a new McDonald’s was constructed and opened. In our city of just over 80,000 we now have four free-standing McDonald’s and one inside Wal-Mart.

I do have to say that the McDonald’s building does look nice. Especially in the late evening sun on a fall day.

I am sure that this will be a busy McDonald’s as it is just a block away from one of our High Schools.

I was sad to see the old building and trees demolished, but sometimes you have to move forward and make good use of a prime location. Hopefully more urban renewal will follow in this area. There are a few buildings and lots close to here that have sat empty for many years.

Steven