Three Foley businesses are being recognized this month for going the extra mile to keep their properties looking their best. The City of Foley presented its annual Beautification Awards to Blossman Gas on North McKenzie Street, Grounded Energy on West Myrtle Avenue and Centennial Bank on South McKenzie Street, honoring their efforts to enhance the appearance of the city. The three winners represent a cross-section of Foley’s commercial landscape — a propane supplier, a utility-services business and a community bank — spread across three of the corridors that carry most of the city’s daily traffic.
Plaques Presented at Each Location
City officials delivered plaques recognizing the three businesses as Foley Beautification Award winners at each location on Wednesday, Aug. 12. The awards are selected by the Foley Revitalization and Beautification Advisory Board, which reviews properties throughout the city each year to identify businesses and property owners that make a notable effort to improve the appearance of their properties and the surrounding areas. The board’s members drive the city’s corridors looking at landscaping, building maintenance, signage and the overall impression each property leaves on passersby, then narrow the field to a handful of standouts worthy of the year’s recognition.
The decision to present the plaques in person, at each winning property, is deliberate. A plaque mounted in a lobby or above a counter tells every customer who walks through the door that the business has been recognized by the city, and it keeps the award visible long after the presentation ceremony is over. For the winners, the morning deliveries doubled as a small public celebration, with city officials and board members stopping by to thank employees who water the plants, sweep the walks and keep the grounds trim.
Mayor Praises Local Business Efforts
Foley Mayor Ralph Hellmich said the awards are meant to highlight the work local businesses put into making the city a more attractive place for residents and visitors alike. “Once a year, the Beautification Committee works with businesses that go above and beyond to beautify their business and their grounds, and to make things just better for not only themselves but all around them,” Hellmich said. “We appreciate that.”
In addition to the plaques presented at each business, the Foley City Council also presented proclamations recognizing the three award recipients during a recent council meeting, giving the honorees additional public recognition for their efforts. Proclamations read into the record of a council meeting put the winners’ names into the city’s official proceedings, and they give the businesses a formal document many choose to display alongside the plaque. The two-track recognition — one at the property, one at City Hall — reflects how much weight Foley puts on the program each year.
Part of a Broader Beautification Effort
The annual Beautification Awards are one piece of the city’s ongoing push to encourage businesses and property owners to invest in the appearance and vitality of their community. By spotlighting properties that stand out for their upkeep and landscaping, city officials say the program is designed to encourage other business owners to follow suit, contributing to a more attractive Foley overall. City leaders have long treated appearance as an economic development tool as much as an aesthetic one: a city that looks cared-for draws shoppers, retains businesses and signals to potential investors that the community takes pride in itself.
Foley’s corridors give the program plenty to work with. McKenzie Street runs the length of the city’s commercial spine, lined with businesses of every size, while Myrtle Avenue and the streets around downtown connect the city’s historic core to its newer growth. The advisory board’s yearly review covers properties across that whole map, and winners have historically come from every corner of the city — which is part of the point. Beautification, in Foley’s framing, is not a downtown project but a citywide standard.
The Revitalization and Beautification Advisory Board itself is a standing example of the city’s approach to civic improvement. Boards like Foley’s are staffed by appointed residents who volunteer their time to evaluate, advise and recognize, and their recommendations carry into the city’s planning conversations throughout the year. The award cycle gives the board its most public moment, but the underlying work — identifying problem properties, suggesting improvements and encouraging investment — continues between ceremonies.
For Blossman Gas, Grounded Energy and Centennial Bank, this year’s recognition serves as a public acknowledgment of the investment each business has made in its property, a distinction city leaders hope will continue to inspire similar efforts from other businesses throughout Foley in the years ahead. Each winner earned the award through the unglamorous work that defines curb appeal: maintained landscaping, clean facades, tidy screening of service areas and grounds that look attended-to in every season. None of it happens by accident, and the city’s message is that such effort is noticed.
The timing of the August presentations places the awards in the middle of Foley’s busy calendar, when summer traffic along the Highway 98 and Highway 59 corridors is at its peak and thousands of visitors pass through the city on the way to the Gulf beaches. Those travelers form a first impression of Foley in the space of a few blocks, and the beautification program is aimed squarely at making that impression a good one. Clean, well-kept commercial properties encourage visitors to stop, shop and return — a benefit that flows to every business in the city, not only the winners.
City officials also frame the awards as a reciprocal gesture. Foley’s businesses pay taxes, sponsor youth sports, employ residents and absorb the daily wear of a city that has grown rapidly in recent decades. The Beautification Awards cost the city little but signal something disproportionate: that the community sees the difference between a property that is merely there and one that is maintained with care. The proclamations read at the council meeting make that acknowledgment part of the city’s permanent record.
Nominations and evaluations for next year’s cycle will begin again as the advisory board resumes its rounds of the city’s corridors. Business and property owners who want a shot at the recognition know the criteria by now, and every storefront that adds fresh landscaping or a new coat of paint raises the bar for the field. That steady ratcheting is the program’s real achievement — a city where good appearance has become the expectation rather than the exception, one award-winning property at a time.
The three winning properties also illustrate how different kinds of businesses contribute to a city’s appearance. A propane operation like Blossman Gas must balance the practical demands of an industrial service yard with the visual expectations of a commercial corridor, and winners in that category tend to stand out precisely because the bar is harder to clear. Utility and energy services companies such as Grounded Energy face similar constraints, while a bank branch like Centennial’s occupies a site where landscaping and presentation are part of the customer experience every day. Recognizing all three types sends the message that every property, whatever its use, is part of the city’s face.
Foley’s growth has made the beautification mission more urgent, not less. As new retail centers and residential subdivisions spread outward from the historic downtown, the visual fabric of the city is rewritten lot by lot, and the advisory board’s annual review serves as a gentle enforcement of standards that no ordinance can fully capture. Awards do what fines cannot: they make good maintenance socially rewarding, and they give neighbors a benchmark to point to when a corner property starts to slip.
A Recognition With Staying Power
Winners of civic beautification awards often report that the recognition pays practical dividends long after the ceremony. The plaque becomes a talking point with customers, the proclamation a framed fixture in the lobby, and the award itself a small marketing credential in a competitive local market. For a community bank or a family-run service business, third-party recognition from the city carries a credibility that advertising cannot buy, and many past recipients have pointed to the honor when explaining why they keep investing in their grounds year after year.
The city’s annual cycle will continue next summer, when the advisory board again reviews the properties across Foley and selects a new class of winners. Until then, the three plaques presented on Aug. 12 will hang on North McKenzie Street, West Myrtle Avenue and South McKenzie Street — three small brass statements about what the city values, delivered in person to the businesses that set the standard.
Residents who want to follow the program’s progress can find the advisory board’s work reflected throughout the city calendar, from the award presentations each August to the recommendations the board makes to city departments during the rest of the year. The board’s evaluations also serve as an informal census of Foley’s commercial health, tracking which corridors are thriving and which properties need attention. That yearly survey, conducted by volunteers who know the city street by street, has become one of the quiet institutions of local government in Foley.
