Aurora balances charm, convenience

There’s an historic downtown district in the midst of revitalization, an influx of national retail opportunities, and ongoing projects to improve school and government facilities to meet the needs of a rapidly growing population.

The issue for city officials is finding a happy medium – between old and new, mom-and-pop stores and corporate businesses, character and convenience.

As chairman of economic development for the Aurora Chamber of Commerce, Jeramie Grosenbacher deals with those issues every day.

“You have to have a mixture of both,” said Grosenbacher, pointing to quality of life and sales tax base benefits. “Certainly you need some of the newer, bigger things to attract people to shop here and move here – you want people to be able to buy things in their own community. But you also need some of the smaller businesses to add some character and personality.”

Striking a balance

Two of the area’s largest car dealers are in Aurora. Jimmy Michel Motors ranked seventh on SBJ’s 2005 list of largest new car dealers, and Mayse Automotive Group was No. 1 on the list in 2004. Mayse Automotive did not participate in the 2005 list.

The town also is on the verge of landing the biggest of big-box retailers – Wal-Mart – at the intersection of highways 60 and 39. Grosenbacher said construction should start any time with completion by the end of the year.

Those large retail opportunities are balanced with a downtown revitalization effort several years in the making. Several blocks have been made over with new street lamps, stamped concrete, handicapped-accessible ramps and underground utilities, and the effort will continue through the town square.

Aurora’s downtown businesses, like the buildings they are in, feature old looks with new twists – a former bank building has been converted into Bootleggers, a family-style restaurant, and another decades-old building just feet away now houses a coffee shop and loft spaces.

“Like a lot of towns, we are faced with a downtown area with the allure of some history,” Grosenbacher said. “You want to upgrade but preserve some of that (history) so it’s different from the typical big-box establishments that usually locate in higher traffic areas.”

Keeping up

As it turns out, a case of “keeping up with the Joneses” has prompted the need for change in Aurora.

Aurora’s population has grown 37 percent since 2000. The Census Bureau’s population estimate for the 65605 ZIP code, which includes Aurora and its outlying rural areas, has grown from 9,500 in 2000 to more than 13,000 in 2005.

The draw of the area, according to Aurora R-VIII Schools Superintendent Dale Slagle, is not hard to figure out.

“I think the location is a big draw – we’re almost the midpoint between Joplin and Springfield, we’re the midpoint between Stockton Lake and Table Rock,” he said. “Plus, cost of living is great here, as it is in all of southwest Missouri.”

The growth has led to new opportunities, including expansion in education and health care.

St. John’s, which currently has a 28-bed facility in Aurora, has announced plans for a larger health center; hospital spokesperson Mike Peters said the new building is in the hospital’s master plan, though details on size and cost have yet to be determined.

Grosenbacher said that health facilities and other amenities are what make the area so attractive.

“People move here because they want to be away from the noise and traffic, but they want to be able to get to it in 30 minutes,” he said.

“We obviously want people to support businesses in the community as much as possible to the extent that they can, but we realize there are certain things you have to leave town for. That can be a detriment to you – if dollars leave your town – but it can also be a strength.”

New-school attitude

The town of Aurora is in the midst of rapid population growth.

Census estimates show that the population in the 65605 ZIP code, which includes Aurora and outlying rural areas, has grown 37 percent in the last five years.

To meet this demand, Aurora R-VIII Schools is in the process of building a new high school, set to open for classes in January.

Superintendent Dale Slagle said the original building was constructed in 1923.

The new $11 million high school will cover 126,000 square feet and house 550 students, allowing the system to alleviate an overcrowding problem plaguing all the system’s facilities.

“We were averaging about 25 (new) students per year – about 1 percent to 2 percent growth,” Slagle said. “We are overcrowded in our lower grades, and this new building will let us reconfigure those (buildings).

Once the main building of the old high school is demolished, the site will still have more than 30 usable classrooms, allowing junior high students to use that building.

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