1736 Magazine - Fall 2018

Sue Parr
President and CEO, Augusta Metro
Chamber of Commerce
DOWNTOWN
BEAUTIFICATION
Maintenance key ingredient in ‘recipe’
for lasting success
Pick a city. Any city. No two are exactly alike, but those
that are making significant gains in urban redevelopment
tend to have a “secret sauce” – that special
something that is accelerating growth.
There is no disputing downtown Augusta’s secret
sauce is the cyber industry. It is helping fuel a renaissance in the
urban core that includes the development of new retail, restaurants,
offices and residential housing.
Thinking about the secret sauce is important because it gives
the community pause to consider the elements on which the sauce
is being applied – the basic “sandwich” of downtown Augusta. In
many cities on the rise, community leaders have a tendency to focus
on the sauce more than the sandwich.
The point was eloquently made by former Denver Mayor Wellington
Webb when he spoke at the chamber’s annual meeting in 2015.
The chamber was honored to partner with Augusta Mayor Hardie
Davis in extending the invitation to Webb, who not only graciously
accepted but spent a considerable amount of time meeting with
Mayor Davis and the Augusta Commission.
His message about the revitalization of Denver was not
earth-shattering nor complex. It was simple. In his words, the three
most important things cities can do to bring downtowns back to life
is clean them up, clean them up and clean them up.
Making a community attractive to visitors and potential new
residents is not different than making one’s home presentable to
guests: “What do you do when company’s coming?” Webb said.
“You clean up the living room.”
Sounds like a basic function, but for downtowns the size and age
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