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

AUGUSTA TOMORROW
Revitalization
REBOOT
Augusta Tomorrow’s leadership passes
from Boomers to Gen Xers, Millennials
Lauren Dallas, new executive director
of Augusta Tomorrow, holds one of the
downtown revitalization organization’s old
signs in front of recent aerial images at its
offices in Enterprise Mill .
By DAMON CLINE
Lauren Dallas, Augusta Tomorrow’s new
executive director, wasn’t even born
when the downtown revitalization group
was founded in 1982.
But her age is no strike against her.
In fact, it is something of an asset. The 35-yearold
Kentucky native is part of the largest generation
in the American workforce, and it happens to be the
same generation most interested in living in an urban
environment.
“Millennials want to live close to downtown,
close to where they work,” said Dallas, who joined
the organization in May.
The new executive director isn’t the only fresh
face leading Augusta Tomorrow. Earlier this year
41-year-old Brian Rhodes was named president of
the downtown advocacy group. Ryan Downs, 36,
was named vice president.
The leadership change is notable because the
38-year-old organization has largely been under
the direction of the Baby Boomer generation, some
of whom have been involved with the organization
since its inception.
“We’ve added a lot of young folks over the past
three, four, five years and now they’re moving into
leadership roles,” said Robert Osborne, Augusta
Tomorrow past president and a senior vice president
for South State Bank. “We’ve got people sitting
around the table with skin in the game – they
own property downtown and they work downtown.”
Rhodes, CEO of TaxSlayer, is an Augusta native.
He was at the helm when the company made the
decision to move its headquarters downtown to
the former YMCA building on Broad Street, a
50,000-square-foot building the software company
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