Mayor Warren talks growth, Tyler’s future

TYLER — The City of Tyler is growing and the growth isn’t limited to just one area. “We’re seeing growth in residential and industrial and retail growth,” said Scott Martinez, CEO, Tyler Economic Development Council. According to our news partner KETK, Mayor Don Warren says keeping up with the growth means tackling several major initiatives at the same time.“There’s a lot of rabbits in the hat, and we just got to figure out which one we’re going to pull out next, but there’s going to be something that comes out of that,” said Mayor Don Warren, City of Tyler.

At the Tyler State of the City Thursday afternoon Mayor Warren said he is excited to get started on the downtown area. Adding it is the heart of the city and the hope is to attract more businesses. “When a company is looking at different communities as far as where they’re going to make an investment, downtown really provides a barometer of the economic health of a community,” said Martinez. Mayor Warren says Tyler can’t reach its potential if it can’t keep the brightest and the best here at home, and he says a thriving downtown can do that. “And the hope is once we make the downtown investment that the buildings that are vacant now will become filled,” said Mayor Warren.

Another topic was improving traffic flow around the city by syncing traffic lights and fixing the roads. Currently, the city has finished re-timing lights at a 3rd of the intersections. “We will do another 18 this year, so the more we know, the better they will be,” said Mayor Warren. Projects to widen major streets like Old Jacksonville and parts of South Broadway were also discussed. “People were talking about traffic, they’re constantly talking about traffic in the community, think about it, there’s no traffic, that means people aren’t going to shop, they are going to work, commerce isn’t happening, and that’s not a healthy thing,” said Martinez.

Mayor Warren says he can’t wait to see all the work completed and adds now is a great time to live in the City of Tyler.