With Mobile Mayor Sandy Stimpson’s career winding down, he reflected Monday on an experience he had driving around the city’s downtown streets with executives of cruise companies.

“They were on the passengers side and we passed by blight after blighted building,” Stimpson said about the tour he provided to the executives, hoping to impress them on the city in hopes of attracting additional cruise ships to the city’s waterfront.

But instead of cruises, a stark reality hit the mayor. The downtown was depressing.

“My insides hurt,” Stimpson said. “This is embarrassing. We got to do something otherwise you will never have a great downtown.”

That something is in the form of an eight-page vacant structure registry, an ordinance that the Mobile City Council will vote on during its Oct. 14 mee

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