Today, residents and guests of Downtown Casper, Wyoming, can walk a few blocks for a wood-fired pizza at Racca’s Pizzeria Napoletana, browse a gallery at Art 321, attend an event at David Street Station, or spend the day exploring unique retail shops. Those experiences may feel natural now, but they exist because years ago a handful of people were willing to see possibilities where others saw problems.
A Visionary Leader
One of those people was Art Boatright, Casper native and President of Mobile Concrete. When Boatright first stepped inside the building at 430 S. Ash St. in Downtown Casper, he wasn’t looking at a group of thriving businesses, he was looking at a challenge.
“It was a mess. It was a disaster,” Boatright recalls. “It had been all kinds of different things but had gone vacant.”
The rundown building, located in the heart of the Old Yellowstone District, had seen decades of use and neglect. It needed significant structural work, extensive renovation, and a vision for what it could become. Fortunately, vision wasn’t in short supply.
Partnerships and Perseverance
Boatright, his wife Lynette, business partners John and Lauren Griffith, and community advocates including Liz Becher, Community Development Director for the City of Casper, believed downtown Casper deserved destinations that would bring people together. They saw an opportunity not simply to restore a building, but to create a place that would attract residents, visitors, and future investment.
That vision, however, would require far more than good intentions. Revitalization stories often focus on the finished product. What they don’t show are the long days, difficult decisions, and physical labor that happen behind the scenes.
For 430 S. Ash St., much of the work happened beneath the floor. “We had to do quite a bit of concrete reinforcement underneath it, and it was not easy,” Boatright says. “We would have to drill holes in the existing floor and then use a special way to get the concrete down into forms below because there was no way to do it otherwise.”
The work was physically demanding. Boatright and Griffith completed much of it themselves while still maintaining their full-time careers. “John and I did all that,” he says. “That was really hard because we both had other jobs.”
A Brighter Future
Today, those decisions and that determination have created opportunities for dozens of employees, attracted thousands of visitors, and helped establish momentum that continues to build throughout Downtown Casper.
For Boatright, the future of Downtown Casper isn’t just about restaurants or entertainment. It’s about creating a community where people want to live. He points to the new Old Yellowstone Apartments and other planned residential projects as the next critical chapter in the evolution.
“The rooftops are the key,” he says. “Once you get a core group of people that are living here, now they’re going to frequent all these places.”
Original reporting: Oil City News (Casper WY) — read the source article.
