New Hope for Newtown
Lorna Alston, 53, came to the City of
What do you bring to community redevelopment from your banking background? The ability to analyze the finances for any kind of development. If someone brings something to the table, I’m able to see if it’s a viable project, if there are financial gaps in the process, and sometimes I’m able to help them work their finances to put a better package together. What I’ve found is they know what they want to do, but understanding the financing behind it becomes the critical piece of putting the deal together. It’s almost like a precursor to going to the bank—I know what the bank is looking for.
What special challenges does
How will you accomplish that? I am waiting to hear how they will want me to do that. I can only draw from my prior experience, primarily through brownfield redevelopment in
Any ideas for the brownfield property off U.S. 301 and Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard where WalMart was proposed to go? We know that we have to do something; it’s a matter of getting the community consensus. My first personal priority is to get to know the community, not only on the community activist level, but the business level, the Chamber of Commerce level, and seeing how they all play together, I’m looking forward to seeing how we can create some kind of collaboration with the universities.
Describe your management style. Very open ended in terms of a listener, an engager, and more team oriented as opposed to downward, ‘I’m the boss.’ “I have to add that, in any success that I do have, I preface it on the fact that the Lord is my guide in the whole process. There is a spirituality to me that governs my style.”