Downtown business owners try to keep smiling amid pandemic - 1736 Magazine, Summer 2020

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A BANNER DOWNTOWN District-designation banners will go up this fall By DAMON CLINE For much of its existence, downtown Augusta was a mish-mash of commerce. With the exception of a few theaters occupying the same general area, there was no logical clustering of businesses. That is, until the 1970s and ’80s, when the exodus of downtown commerce created a uniformity nobody wanted: vacant buildings. Then, in the early 1990s, the city convention center complex was built. Then art galleries started to open. Then bars and restaurants came. Patterns were beginning to develop organically as the central business district came back to life, with some blocks having a preponderance of a particular industry. Today, locals know where those blocks are, but visitors do not. That will soon change. One of the recommendations in the city's tourism plan, Destination Blueprint, was to delineate the “districts” that have naturally formed over time. Color-coded banners are being created to hang from city streetlight poles. “Defining the downtown into districts gives visitors a better sense upon arrival of what can be found,” said Jennifer Bowen, vice president of the Augusta Convention & Visitors Bureau. The four distinct sub-districts within the central business district are: the convention district, the dining district, the arts/culture district and the entertainment district. Designs for the four banners are complete and are expected to be installed by traffic engineering officials in early fall. The banners are among the simpler recommendations in the Destination Blueprint plan, but their completion demonstrates work on the plan’s larger projects is ongoing. “I feel good about these being examples of progress,” CVB President Bennish Brown said. “What we are doing is bringing to life the recommendations of Destination Blueprint in a very tangible way.” An artist rendering shows what the district banners will look like once they are hung on city streetlight poles this fall. [SPECIAL/KRUHU] ABOVE: An Augusta Convention & Visitors Bureau-provided map shows the general boundaries of the four districts within downtown Augusta. The districts will act as wayfinding signs for downtown visitors. [SPECIAL/AUGUSTA CVB] 38 | 1736magazine.com
AMPHITHEATER RIGHT: Color-coded banners are being created. Designs for the four banners are complete and are expected to be installed by traffic engineering officials in early fall. 1736magazine.com | 39
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Page 8 and 9: COVER STORY Shelley Craft, owner of
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Page 30 and 31: OFFICE DEMAND The SunTrust Building
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Page 34 and 35: The conference room in Balch & Bing
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Page 45 and 46: named executive director of Turn Ba
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Downtown business owners try to keep smiling amid pandemic - 1736 Magazine, Summer 2020

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