COVID 19 Recovery
Like most of the state and country, Starkville has also had to adjust our way of life during the COVID-19 pandemic. This means that our business community and our families in the community have had to make some big sacrifices. As we come through and out of this pandemic, we must ensure that our businesses and our families are stronger than ever. To help our businesses recover, we will need to do the following things:
Continue our investment in our central downtown business district
Work with the Partnership to assist our small business owners have the resources they need to return to normal business practices
Work with our communities organizations to help our families get back on their feet
Ensure our teachers and schools have the resources they need to help our students thrive in the classroom
Community Growth
One of the things that make Starkville such an amazing place to work, live, learn and raise a family is our local community. We must continue our responsible investment in community growth. We should hold onto our strong downtown business district with first class restaurants and retail shops. Over the next 4 years, we must concentrate on the following areas:
Support and grow a strong and vibrant downtown with creative options for Main Street activities
Continue developing the Highway 25 by-pass
Expand our downtown focus to include University, Lampkin, Russell and 182 through the BUILD grant and the Leisure and Entertainment District
Quality of Life
Starkville is setting the example for cities all across the state around quality of life issues. We have been named Mississippi’s Healthiest Hometown and given the Playful City USA designation and will be re-establishing ourselves as a certified retirement community. We have a very successful “SMART” mass transit program and an expanding bike and sidewalk network. To attract businesses and young professionals we must continue to invest in the following:
Work with the County and the school district on improving and increasing our parks and recreational facilities for our residents to the north as well as our neighborhood green spaces
Continue to support, maintain and expand with MSU our “SMART” mass transit program to address the needs of our growing city
Add more bike lanes and sidewalks to our neighborhoods (where possible through grant opportunities)
Promote programs that will lead to a more active and healthy lifestyle
Economic Development and Job Creation
Starkville has seen tremendous success in the last 16 years as we continue to work to attract industries back to the area, and we must continue to invest in sound economic development programs that will finally help Starkville attract more big employers to locate inside our city. Over the next 4 years, we must work to achieve the following to create more jobs in Starkville:
Work with the communiversity and EMCC and Millsaps Vo-tech to train and retrain our workforce to stay competitive with other cities that have a highly educated workforce
Continue collaboration with the MSU Entrepreneurship Center to help turn university research into new business opportunities that will remain and grow in Starkville
Good Land Use
Starkville is one of the fastest growing cities in the state, and our policies must be updated to achieve our agreed upon vision for our city’s future. We need to build an attractive and economically friendly city to continue our planned growth. In order to achieve our goals, we will focus on the following:
Complete the annexation process we have started to achieve our smart growth goals
Develop an infrastructure program than continuously looks at improving our streets and roads, drainage and flooding issues, and budget soundly for those improvements
Continue to find creative ways to promote and support in-fill development