WAYNE – Executive Director with Wayne Area Economic Development, Luke Virgil joined the ‘View from Wayne America’ in late September.
It was a busy month of September in the Chamber office as well as some more events being planned in the near future in the City of Wayne.
Virgil first wanted to send out a thank you for those who attended the Business After Hours titled ‘A Slice of Wayne’ on September 23 from The Coop At Johnnie Byrd Brewing Company.
“Great stuff from all five and appreciate them,” said Virgil. “We did kind of a matching thing where we bought a pizza and they donated a pizza. So, got a lot of variety of flavors and toppings throughout the evening. Then we had four really good sponsors help us out with that.”
Pizza featured from around town included The Jug, Five Star Pizzeria, Pizza Hut, Godfather’s and Auntie K’s. Sponsors included Wayne State Athletics, Teresa Dredge Title Services of the Plains, Great Dane and Galas Galore (W.W. Galore decorating service).
Monday, October 17 is a date for community members to mark on their calendar for a Local Candidate Forum at 7 p.m. from the Wayne Senior Center.
“We’ve invited three contested races here in the City of Wayne and the Wayne Area,” Virgil added. “Those contested races are Mayor of Wayne, then we’ve got City Council Ward One and then we’ve got the Wayne School Board.”
Notice of General Election, Wayne County Election Commissioner’s Office.
There are three openings on the school board with three incumbents and one challenger (School board candidate stepping down, 8/31) , Ward One will be feature two individuals and an incumbent as well as a challenger for the Mayor race.
Another event approaching in the month of October will be ‘The Fall Thing” which is a chance for businesses to open up their doors and encourage trick-or-treating throughout the entire community. The event will take place on Saturday, October 22.
WAED staff is still looking for a couple more sponsors to help provide free bowling for teenagers at Wildcat Lanes. A free movie will also be shown in partnership with The Majestic Theatre.
Thursday, October 27 is also being set for a follow-up on the Housing Summit tentatively to be held at the Wayne Country Club. Wayne Area Business and Industry Committee is calling this “Housing Summit 2.0”.
Virgil has brought up the concern for the future growth of the community with the number of housing lots decreasing.
“We want to keep seeing people build houses or move up the housing chain,” Virgil mentioned. “So, we know we’ve got the possibility of the large apartment complex over on the ‘Community Gardens’ lot that the City is taking care of. But we need residential lots. I started tracking this back in February of 2020, at that time we had about 60-62 lots available for sale. Since that time, we’ve sold enough that there are only 27 available.”
The group is hoping to get some folks corralled around the idea of where is the next big housing development project going to go, who are the partners going to be and to put urgency on this.
Looking ahead on the Wayne Area Economic Development schedule is ‘Christmas in Wayne’ being set for Thursday, November 17 which will feature the Parade of Lights, Christmas specials provided by local businesses and kickoff to the WAED Holiday Stamp Card promotion.
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‘View from Wayne America’ September 28 interview.
