An Experiential Learning Journal by McKenzie Marker

Monday, January 27, 2025

I had the opportunity to visit Buena Vista, Virginia along with students Carter Babcock, Cameron Giuseppe, and Ansley Napier, and faculty members Michael Cary and Mario Ortez. We met with the Executive Director Brooke Dalton and her successor Jen Carpenter from Main Street Buena Vista regarding Main Street Buena Vista's partnership with The Kohl Centre.

The name “Buena Vista”, which translates to “good view,” is truly an understatement. Buena Vista sits along the Maury River, five miles from the Blue Ridge Parkway and nine miles to the Appalachian Trail, this location is ideally situated for attracting those interested in outdoor recreation. Even in the winter, the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains behind the Maury River provided a scenic backdrop for this meeting.

During our visit, we had the opportunity to hear from Kristina Ramsey, the city of Buena Vista’s Economic Development Director. She shared her ideas about improving Buena Vista's economy, especially through revitalizing old buildings to attract new businesses and creating spaces for the community to spend time in town. 

As an Agri-Food Finance Fellow with the Kohl Centre at Virginia Tech, I lead a group of my fellow undergraduate students in a co-consulting capacity with the project. The passion that everyone we met in Buena Vista had for their town and their desire to improve it was encouraging and contagious. It inspired our group to want to do as much as we could to help them achieve their goals and revitalize Buena Vista. The most interesting thing we encountered on our trip was the progress that had already been made to parts of Main Street. In the town square, they were finishing a stage and covered structure for their farmer's market and outdoor activities. Several new businesses popped up when they first started this project back in 2022; now, our job is to help them find ways to keep those businesses going in the future. 

Throughout this project, we will be using business management, financial analysis, and marketing techniques to complete this task and provide Main Street Buena Vista with the most accurate and helpful information possible. We will evaluate the costs and benefits of creating new businesses in the area and determine if fixing up some of the older buildings in the community and modernizing them would be worth the investment. We are very excited about this project and are looking forward to working closely with their community.