Lavonia City Manager Gary Fesperman Retires

Lavonia City Manager Gary Fesperman has retired.

On Monday, a drop-in reception was held for Fesperman at the historic Lavonia Train Depot.

Fesperman said he was touched by the response from the community to his departure and called his retirement bittersweet.

“You look back at what you did and where the City is now compared to where it was and what we have now, and it’s like night and day,” Fesperman said. “But it was a team effort. The City Council, Mayor and all of the folks in our area helped make it possible.”

Fesperman has served as Lavonia’s City Manager since 1999.

During that time, he has been instrumental in helping revitalize the downtown and grow the town’s economy.

Fesperman credits a large part of the town’s economic success with the institution of the Main Street program.

“Back in that day, you could shoot through downtown Lavonia at lunch with a shotgun and not hit a single car,” Fesperman remembered. “We had a 45-50% vacancy rate in all of our downtown stores. One of the best things we did was get affiliated with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs’ Better Hometown program, which is now Main Street. That’s what gave us a platform to do some really nice things downtown.”

Today, the downtown area enjoys over a 95% occupancy rate and you can hardly find a place to park during normal business hours, especially at lunch.

Additionally, Lavonia continues to work on revitalizing the area by working to attract new business and industry, and by offering seasonal events such as the spring and fall festivals and holiday events.

Another program instituted during Fesperman’s tenure was the Certified Local Government program, which he said allowed Lavonia to establish a Historic Preservation Commission and a Historic Preservation District.

“That really fostered a lot of improvement in how our buildings downtown were being renovated. That, coupled with Better Hometown, gave us a lot of potential to recruit new businesses downtown. A lot of towns are still running 35-40% vacancy rates downtown and Lavonia has been blessed through the years that we’ve been able to overcome that.”

Other milestones over the past 17 years he says included the widening of the SR17 bridge over I-85, which brought in a lot of new businesses and a lot of new interest.

“We had, for the first time, the opportunity to reconfigure a good portion of the interchange and it’s brought in a lot of new businesses,” he noted.

Fesperman noted all of the fast-food restaurants are either new or have renovated and updated their stores. Additionally, new businesses have come in, such as the Hampton Inn and Holiday Express Inn, J. Peters restaurant and a new strip mall.

Probably one of the most notable milestones during Fesperman’s time as City Manager was the elimination of the Cafe’ Risque topless bar and its related signs along the Interstate, which he says hindered economic growth in Lavonia for many years.

“That’s what gave such a bad impression of Lavonia and Exit 173,” Fesperman said. “Those billboards were posted up and down the Interstate 100 miles in either direction. That was the one thing we wanted to get rid of the most – the idea that we actually had something like that in Lavonia.”

In 2008, the Cafe Risque was purchased by a private investor, who then sold the building and property to the City for a dollar.

City Council members, Mayor Ralph Owens, Fesperman and dozens of concerned citizens turned out that same day to watch as city crews tore down the building and sign.

The sign was then burned in a huge bonfire on the property. The next day, the building was bulldozed and the property cleared.

The property on Ross Road is still for sale and zoned commercial.

Fesperman is succeeded as the City Manager by former Franklin County Commissioner Charles Cawthon.