Heights Council considering northern revitalization, business development

Killeen Daily Herald
Jack Dowling | Herald
November 1,2022

HARKER HEIGHTS -- Tuesday’s Harker Heights City Council workshop was forward-facing, with presentations on business development and a potential plan to begin a revitalization the city’s north side.

The presentation on business development was led by a representative from The Retail Coach, who walked the City Council through the firm’s current progress in attracting new business concepts to the area.

The representative noted that the firm has represented the city at three professional conferences and cited the sourcing of Black Bear Diner and Chuy’s as recent accomplishments.

Additionally, the representative also explained that Harker Heights’s median household income has grown along with all major areas of business over the past year. The greatest areas of growth that the firm is looking to tackle are casual dining restaurants.

Councilman Sam Halabi pointed out that the representative primarily focused on restaurants.

“I think that there are a lot of good concepts that can work in your trade area; we’re just focusing on casual dining because that’s where a lot of interest is,” the representative said.

Halabi, who owns the Acropolis Greek restaurant in Harker Heights, also raised a concern that prioritizing regional or national chains and franchises may drive out local businesses.

“Some of these chains, they offer $12 an hour for their workers. I can’t compete with that,” he said.

The Retail Coach is a firm that works with the city and the Harker Heights Economic Development Corporation to provide business data for prospective ventures.

revitalizing the north side

Northern Harker Heights as an area could use some help, members of the City Council noted on Tuesday.

Tuesday’s agenda item, led by City Manager David Mitchell, was a preliminary discussion to establish focus areas of a potential north Harker Heights revitalization plan. Areas of improvement discussed Tuesday included walkability, accessibility and improvement in both scale and quality of businesses.

No action was decided on Tuesday, but the City Council gave Mitchell the green light to involve the Harker Heights EDC, which will present to the City Council at a future date. The City Council can then decide whether a consultancy is warranted at that point.

New alarm regulations

The process for false burglary alarms may change next Tuesday.

An ordinance presented Tuesday outlined a new process for how the city handles false burglary alarms. Currently, residents who have exceeded their false alarm allowances must submit an appeals letter to the city manager, with the appeals decision being left to the City Council. This made the city manager the administrator and the City Council the board of appeals.

Under the new process, the police chief would administer the program while the city manager would be in charge of the appeals process.