FLORENCE, Ala. (WHNT) — The city of Florence updated its citizens on the success the city has had so far this year and the ongoing plans they have for the future.

Several projects are underway in the city of Florence and at tonight’s State of the City address Mayor Andy Betterton highlighted his ideas on making Florence “simply the best”

Of the projects mentioned the one with the biggest impact is the plan for a new utility payment center coming to Seville Street making the payment process more efficient for customers and leading to the elevation of traffic in downtown Florence

“In city hall, there is a payment center attached to it,” Betterton said. “In order to build our new city hall we are going to have to close that, so we’re building a stand-alone utility payment center out on Seville Street. So with 350 cars a day that is much more adequate for what we need.”

For those who enjoy spending time in local parks the parks and recs director says you will soon have new facilities and trails to take advantage of.

“All four of these projects will bring in people from out of town to play at our Sportsplex to visit our parks and overall citizens of Florence will be able to enjoy it,” Florence Parks and Rec Director Bill Jordan said.

Now citizens say some of the updates they heard really lend to their interests

“I would say the improvement to the sportsplex like how they’re hosting the world series and stuff like that and how they’ve been adding new fields to it,” said young resident Christian Alexander

As some residents mentioned the city announced they will be hosting the Cal Ripken Baseball World Series in 2024 they expect the world series amongst other projects in the city to have a huge economic impact on the city of Florence.

The city of Florence also announced they estimated $82 million in revenue in their general fund, they say they are on track to exceed that by $4 million.