Education Edition - 1736 Magazine, Fall 2019

You throw 50,000 people around Harlem and Appling, it just
changes things. This is where all the people who are trying to
escape, so to speak, urban sprawl. This is the last frontier. Unless
you’re going into McDuffie County, this is the last frontier. It will
be interesting to see how this plays out.
HARLEM CITY MANAGER C. BRETT COOK
which occupies the former Harlem Woman’s Club
building the city purchased in 2017. The civic club,
formed in 1925, now meets in the Harlem public
library.
“They couldn’t keep the property up,” Cook
said. “We said you can meet there (in the library)
for free and we’ll buy your building. Take the
money and use it for scholarships and such. We
told them we’re not going to demo it, we’re going
to find a way to keep it for public use.”
SMALL STREETS, BIG IDEAS
Over on New Street, a side street off North
Louisville Street, officials envision an “artist’s
row” studio-and-residential neighborhood on
property currently occupied by the city’s public
works department, which the city hopes to relocate
next year. New Street also connects to a 4-acre
parcel where a 40-unit townhome development
with a public park has been proposed.
New Street is No. 2 on the list of side streets with
the most potential to become an expansion of the
city’s downtown corridor.
No. 1 is Hicks Street, which is occupied by an idle
pecan shelling and processing plant that nobody
has figured out how to redevelop.
The 3.5-acre tract at the corner of Hicks and
North Louisville streets is in the hands of Texasbased
San Saba Pecan. The company acquired the
property in 2010 from the Tracy-Luckey Co., a
pecan supplier that was a Harlem family-owned
enterprise for nearly a century.
The property and its 90,000 square feet of
buildings has been on the market for years.
While the city owns or controls much of the
prime real estate in downtown Harlem, it simply
lacks the funds to purchase the entire property –
listed at $1.9 million – although it did acquire the
750-square-foot building that was used as a product
showroom as a way to control future use of the
frontage space.
“There is a lot of multi-use development potential
there. You could almost have a little village
in there, “ Cook said. “I’m shocked nobody has
bought it.”
Regardless, the city’s property tax base
increased 40 percent during the past three years,
largely from new home construction but also
increasing downtown property values, Cook said,
adding that additional funds are used to make
improvements in the central business district.
Increased population also results in Harlem receiving
a bigger share of county sales taxes, which are
allocated based on Census data.
“Forty years ago we might have been 10% of the
county. Now we’re like 2%,” Cook said.”But over
the last few years, we started growing again.”
Aside from the subdivisions under development
in and around Harlem city limits in the northern
section, Cook believes many new residents will
seek housing in the city center to be close to the
revitalized central business district.
“Harlem can be densely populated, but it can
still be Harlem – you can still recognize it,”Cook
said. “For us its taking the residential development
and triangulating it on downtown.”
Projections estimate 50,000 people living in
western Columbia County during the next 30
years. That makes Cook’s job downtown revitalization
and protection efforts even more crucial.
“You throw 50,000 people around Harlem and
Appling, it just changes things,” Cook said. “This
is where all the people who are trying to escape,
so to speak, urban sprawl. This is the last frontier.
Unless you’re going into McDuffie County, this is
the last frontier. It will be interesting to see how
this plays out.”
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