Education Edition - 1736 Magazine, Fall 2019

into a mixed-use building by The Prather
Co., which turned the upper floor of the
historic building into four upscale loft
apartments and created four commercial
suites on the ground floor.
The apartments are fully occupied and
two of the four commercial spaces are
being built out for Harlem Family Dental.
The third space is occupied by the Yoder’s
Dairy Barn’s ice cream shop, which opened
this summer and has enjoyed brisk business,
with patrons using bench seating in
the adjacent “pocket park.”
“We are starting to see foot traffic
pick up, which is a good thing for our
boutiques and restaurants,” said Couch,
whose downtown office opened in 2016.
“We would like to see the city get some
additional parking because, believe it or
not, the parking on the street fills up pretty
quickly.”
The merchants association schedules
several weekend events to drive more
people downtown, including a Ladies
Night Out, where all the town’s shops
open at night with wine and appetizers, a
Trick or Treat on Main Street event a week
before Halloween, and Jazz on the Lawn, a
free event in front of the library that featuring
live music and food and drinks from
local restaurants such as Red Oak Manor
Paintings and memorabilia decorate the new Laurel and Hardy Museum in Harlem, Ga., one of several
improvements the city has made to its downtown in recent years. [MIKE ADAMS/SPECIAL]
and Monte Olivos.
The mini-park where visitors and locals
linger was created when the city tore down
the decrepit, asbestos-filled police department
building.
“It’s really just been over the last three
or four years that Harlem has become a
place where on the weekends people are
out and about,” Cook said.
The police department is now housed
in the city’s public safety complex at
the corner of Louisville Street and
Milledgeville road in a building
that once housed the
Culpepper Ford
dealership.
The 1-acre vacant lot just west of the
complex will be the future site of First
State Bank. The authority sold the property,
which used to house a car wash and a
mobile home park, to the Wrens, Ga.-
based community bank that operates as
Firstate. A condition of the sale included
the company constructing an additional
35 parking spaces that the city can lease
as overflow parking for the public safety
complex, whose courtroom doubles as the
city council chambers.
And just west of the future bank site is
the recently opened Harlem Pharmacy,
The small Georgia town of
Harlem comes alive every year
at the annual Laurel and Hardy
Festival in Harlem, Ga. Officials
hope downtown revitalization
efforts will make the city center
a year-round destination.
[MIKE ADAMS/SPECIAL]
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