Hartwell Institutes Effort to Grow Downtown Area
Participants brainstorm ideas for improving downtown Hartwell
Finding ways to improve downtown Hartwell is the goal of a new effort by Mayor Brandon Johnson.
On Tuesday, the mayor launched the first “Lunch with the Mayor.”
According to Johnson, the goal is bring local citizens and business owners together to find ways to keep the city moving forward through visioning and planning.
Hartwell city fathers have considered joining a program called the Georgia Downtown Renaissance Partnership Pilot Program.
But Johnson said the city could save money by doing a similar program in-house in conjunction with UGA’s Archway Partnership program.
“When you get feedback from the people, hopefully your leadership listens and the council did,” Johnson said. “So we asked, ‘what could we do internally, cut costs and still get a very good product?’ We went to our Archway channels and director Ilka McConnell said she could do a lot of this with help from others. That’s about a $30,000 savings we would receive right there by doing it in-house.”
Under the theme, Growing Hartwell Together, dozens turned out at City Hall for lunch and a brain storming session.
The Hartwell DDA is spearheading the program. DDA Executive Director Henley Cleary said by participating in the program, citizens can help contribute to the growth of the town.
“By taking advantage of the forces we already have in town, Ilka with Archway, we have great volunteers and a great city council, we feel we can do a lot of these things,” she said. “And with correct reporting on a monthly basis of how we’re moving forward and what we’re accomplishing, we believe that would get us into a very good position for getting funding and tax credits for the community.”
After lunch, particpants broke into groups to brainstorm on questions such as, what they thought was good about the downtown area and what needed to be improved.
Under the leadership of Archway Partnership director Ilka McConnell, those ideas were synthesized into key topics that will be addressed in future by the city.