Fall 2020 - 1736 Magazine

BRIEFING
By DAMON CLINE
HITS & MISSES
ACCENTUATE THE POSITIVE: For 51 weeks out of the year, Augusta “is what it is”: A nice and
friendly place to visit for a couple of days. Marketing the city’s casual, comfortable and authentic
experience to regional tourists is a smart move by the Augusta Convention & Visitors Bureau. The
tourism board’s new “Come See Augusta” branding campaign – which puts the emphasis on the
“us” in Augusta – serendipitously dovetails nicely with the current COVID-19 environment, in which
tourists are more likely to make road trips to less-congested cities than fly to tourist-packed markets.
Pandemic or not, we hope the campaign sticks around for many years to come.
PARKING AGREEMENT REVISITED: Let’s be honest – the city’s parking agreement with
downtown tech giant Unisys wasn’t thought out very well. Not only was it extremely ambiguous,
it saddled one of the city’s most valuable tracts of riverfront land – the 6-acre “depot” site – with
an encumbrance that will complicate the property’s redevelopment for the foreseeable future.
Fortunately, the property’s surface lot is more than adequate for Unisys and SAIC, the company
that recently acquired its government contract operation. The lot even has potential to accommodate
the growing number of Augusta University employees being housed at the nearby 699 Broad
St. office tower. The city should focus attention toward building a multi-story deck at the site to
free up acreage at the depot site for redevelopment.
PROTESTS, NOT RIOTS: Peaceful protests in downtown Augusta have been just that – peaceful.
Unlike widespread civil unrest in many cities nationwide, which were sparked by the death
of George Floyd and other high-profile incidents involving the police and African-Americans, the
Garden City’s residents and first responders have done an admirable job of staying cool in a heated
environment. We can only assume the absence of assaults, arson and vandalism at Augusta protests
reflects the levelheadedness of its citizenry and the proactive community-relations efforts by
the Richmond County Sheriff’s Office. Downtown Augusta is struggling enough from the pandemic
– it doesn’t need further disruption by violent protesters.
HIGHWAY ROBBERY: It’s only natural when selling something – anything – to extract the highest
price possible from the buyer. But there comes a point where above-market-value asking prices
tread into the territory of ridiculousness. And that appears to be the situation occurring in the east
side of the historic Harrisburg neighborhood, where absentee owners are asking an arm and a
leg for mostly ramshackle residential properties near the former Central Square shopping center
owned by the MCG Foundation, which is trying to revitalize the blighted area into a mixed-use
“gateway” to serve the medical district. The biggest barrier to realizing the $150 million proposal
along 15th Street has been property owners mistaking the nonprofit for a deep-pocketed corporation
with a bottomless bank account. They are not.
68 | 1736magazine.com