BEAUMONT, Texas — The City of Beaumont on Friday released images from their plans for possible uses of the space where the AT&T building sits in downtown Beaumont.
The city is considering buying the property and demolishing it to make room for riverfront development.
City Manager Kyle Hayes estimates the entire project would cost about $5 million. He estimates roughly $2.8 million would cover the purchase price of the property from current owner Tom Flanagan. Other expenses would cover the cost of demolition and land improvements.
The city's plans to buy the building, demolish and clear the property for redevelopment have come under fire recently.
City of Beaumont releases images of plans for riverfront, AT&T building
The images released Friday show examples of possible redevelopment ideas for the property pulled from several other Texas locations such as Discovery Green and Levy Park in Houston and Market Square in The Woodlands.
The images also showed plans for restaurants along the riverfront just south of the AT&T building site.
Dozens turned out Tuesday night as the city council hosted a town hall meeting to gauge community support for a proposal to buy the building located at 555 Main Street.
During the meeting Hayes asked community members for a show of hands, to see who supported and who opposed the project. The room appeared to be split.
Councilman At Large Randy Feldschau said after Tuesday’s town hall meeting he feels that there are far more people for than against the buy.
"Our people are hungry for vision for hope to move Beaumont forward and that came out loud and clear that the people of Beaumont are ready for change and forward mobility," Feldschau said.
Feldschau said Beaumont’s population of 180,000 has remained stagnant for far too long. He said the younger demographic just doesn’t seem to stay in Beaumont because of the quality of life.
"Projects like this, I believe, will bring about economic growth and numerical growth. It will keep our younger demographic here," Feldschau said.
Part of that younger demographic spoke up at the town hall meeting, saying many people enjoy growing up in Beaumont but lack of opportunity makes people leave.
Beaumont City Councilman Mike Getz said this new idea may not be the best one.
"This is what I’m trying to promote on land that we already own this is celebration park in Naples, Florida. It’s an upscale food truck park," Getz said.
Feldshau said big opportunities have to come with big changes.
"There has to be sidewalks and benches and so forth, maybe a splash pad maybe a bandstand other amenities, lighting and so forth, that will create this huge footprint," Feldshau said.
This is the city's second attempt at buying the property. The city of Beaumont participated in an online auction in 2019. However, they lost out to Tom Flanagan who scored the winning bid more than $2 million.