Driving to work on Wednesday, I must admit, I was pretty thrilled to see a team of city employees out behind the Cahaba Furniture façade clearing out the area I used to affectionately refer to as Jurassic Park.

With the bulldozers’ arrival, hope for improvement to our beloved downtown area was instantly restored.

No longer were there vines coming out of the building’s “windows” along Broad Street, and no longer was there an area behind the façade that could have easily camouflaged an army of men. But rather, the Cahaba Furniture building was restored.

So restored, in fact, that I would be willing to bet that many passers by won’t even notice that the building is not a building at all. And that is important for many reasons.

Drawing back on what I wrote in last week’s column about how we are much closer to a booming downtown than many think, this weed-free façade once again shows that we are trying to move closer to a downtown area that is pretty and free for people to move around in.

Once they pave the space behind the façade, I’ll frequent the sitting area (especially if there’s a water fountain; I love water fountains), and so will many others. I hate to keep harping on the same thing, but I know that we can attract businesses to come here and make people want to walk around downtown for reasons other than the bridge.

And by doing the little things like keeping the areas around our streets and businesses free of litter and keeping weeds from growing through façades, we can get them here.

Yes, we need more parking too. I received a few emails in response to last week’s column saying that we can’t attract businesses without parking. And to that, I say, “touché.” But lets take this one step at a time.

If funds can come to help us build the amphitheater we’ve heard so much about lately, we’ll have to build more parking. And on the nights that there’s not someone playing at the amphitheater (which will probably be often), downtown patrons can utilize all those spaces.

So, without making this into something bigger than it needs to be at the present time, I say thank you, Selma city officials, for cleaning up Jurassic Park.

It was something that definitely needed to be completed, and once it was, our downtown area got a little nicer.