Look behind the for sale signs and the large, dusty plate glass windows and you’ll find gold, gold of the finest sort.

Our area has a number of vacant commercial properties available for lease or purchase and those properties hold huge economic potential for our community.

Getting businesses to relocate inside those long-vacant spots of our community is a vital part of our area’s continued success.

It’s happening every day.

Several examples exist of both new and established businesses reworking vacant buildings for their own benefits including:

4La Fiesta Grande Too moved into the former Hardee’s restaurant on U.S. 61 North.

4Terry Estes State Farm found a new home in the former Pizza Hut on Seargent S. Prentiss Drive.

4A new business Performance Dodge has opened up in the former Lakeside Ford location on the Ferriday-Vidalia highway.

And those are just a few of the businesses that have redeveloped existing buildings.

Downtown Natchez is filled with such examples, too.

Indeed, retail development is a vital part of our area’s future; unfortunately, it’s something that is happening mostly because of the free market, left to the winds of chance.

Few leaders — save a few local developers — are putting their heads together to figure out ways to fill up more properties and continue to turn the “for sale” signs into “opening soon” ones.

All of us, from the Natchez-Adams County and Vidalia chambers of commerce to the economic development leaders to regular citizens need to be thinking and talking about business development.

A strong marketing effort with a fixed set of tax incentives available is the first step.

We’ve seen improvement, but we can — and should — be doing better.