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An article tucked in last Thursday's Mirror reported on the Altoona Redevelopment Authority's effort to find its footing, in hopes of re-establishing itself as an engine of progress, after decades of languishing as a relatively minor city agency.
Likely, most of the Mountain City's current population is too young to know firsthand the authority's proud history as a guiding force in Altoona's major redevelopment initiatives beginning in the latter years of the 1960s.
Those large-scale projects set the stage for the modern city Altoona is today -- and even the current downtown revitalization that followed years, if not decades, of what some people might refer to as limbo.
Those limbo years involved trying to find the right formulas for recovering from the exodus of many businesses to suburban shopping centers and the Logan Valley Mall.
With the initial major redevelopment efforts having been completed by the 1980s, the authority settled into a less visible role of selling an occasional vacant lot in its dual role as the city's Land Bank, but also managing the Transportation Center.
The fact is the authority became something that it was not during the massive transformation from what some people referred to as a "dirty railroad town" left from the former Pennsylvania Railroad's heyday to a glistening gem of economic prosperity, a status that it retains today.
Many of Altoona's current residents probably never have heard the name William C. Bellamy, but many locals old enough to remember the 1960s and 1970s will easily recall it.
It was Bellamy who was Altoona Redevelopment Authority executive director during this city's early transformation years.
Prior to accepting his local position, Bellamy served as executive director of the York City and York County redevelopment authorities, where he developed a housing-rehabilitation program that gained national recognition.
Altoona was fortunate to have been a beneficiary of his work that, unfortunately, was cut short by his death in 1974 at age 42.
Current City Councilman Ron Beatty, also a current member of the redevelopment authority, was quoted in the Sept. 22 article, saying "we need to crawl before we can walk," referring to the process necessary to gear up to an active redevelopment role not seen for several decades.
However, this is not the first time the authority has sought to regain its redevelopment muscle in recent years.
Mirror reporter William Kibler, who wrote last Thursday's article, also reported on a meeting in January 2018, at which reviving the authority's mission was discussed.
The central goal voiced at that meeting was authority participation in the surge of development at that time in the downtown and elsewhere.
But with a new effort underway for the authority to be "reborn" to a higher level of relevance, it is evident that the 2018 hopes failed to gain traction, at least not the kind that was envisioned back then.
Altoona's funding under the American Rescue Plan Act is providing a source for money that can be targeted to getting the redevelopment authority up and running again.
It is true that assembling a sizable redevelopment project area today is not what it was in the 1960s and 1970s. But the opportunity exists today nevertheless for vision and insights.
Perhaps someone today can find the right ingredients here for some positive difference like Bellamy was able to muster a half-century ago.