Perception of Starkville

[StarkVegasSteve]

How does all of this affect the type of athlete State recruits? Most of the football and basketball players and their families in our recruiting footprint have likely never seen the inside of a Whole Foods or Trader Joe's or a Ruth's-Chris or Fleming's for that matter.

Most if you talk about Bars in the district and tiny horrible restaurants like 2- Brothers like they are some prime cooking establishments . I rate 2-Brothers on the same level as Dave's Darkhorse and Waffle House. No wait. Waffle House has better food and a better quality of clientele than 2-Brothers.

Everybody hates chains in here for some reason, but I'd darn sure like to see reasonably priced steakhouse chains like Texas Roadhouse, Longhorn, Saltgrass, or even Outback in Starkville. As for shopping, look what that small shopping center with Marshall's and Aldi's did. Parking lot is always full. Build something like Dogwood Festival off Hwy 12 @ Hwy 80 north of campus with chain stores and watch how it gets built up all around. You already have a built in tax base with it being a college town. Add a 1.5% sales tax to use to build up a fund for commercial development to give investors incentives and tax breaks to come develop! How do you think Ridgeland, which was being left in the dust by Flowood and Madison, was able to get so much development in a short period of time? That land where The Renaissance is was some of the highest price land in Mississippi! Yet they found a way to bring developers in and now that I 55 corridor links Ridgeland, Madison, Gluckstadt and Canton. Brandon 047 didn't want to be just a rural bedroom community, but along Lakeland Drive was some of the most expensive land in Rankin County. There was a time when there were 3 shopping centers out there. Walmart, Kroger and Cowboy Maloney! And nothing but trees and open fields on the north side of Lakeland! It has blown up with all types of business and fast food restaurants to grow their business tax base.

MSU HAS to be the focal point of Starkville and the city needs to build AROUND it, not just on one side of it!

And for the longest time that was the problem. Starkville thought opposite of that.

On your other points, I'd love to see a chain style steakhouse in Starkville. I think an Outback or Longhorn would do very well in Starkville. Although I thought the same about Chilis and that closed.

A shopping center would kill it in Starkville. You have a great base of college kids to be able to market it to. Where to put it would be the issue.

And last point, I am not specifically talking about athletes. We need to be expanding our recruiting footprint in both academics and athletics and not narrowing that footprint.