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includes soup; salad, soft drink
and a choice of pizza, pasta,
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Our Private Room is Available!
Closed Thanksgiving
Open at 4pm Mon-Fri
Open at 11am Sat & Sun
2095 S. Milledge Ave.
706-548-3359
ACCA
ATHENS COMMUNITY COUNCIL ON AGING
invites you to the second annual
f/ib/ic/aa
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Saturday, Dec. 11, 4pm
Sunday, Dec. 12, 2pm
*15 for children, *20 for adults
Hobday Treats • Gourmet Tea
Music • Special Guest: Santa Claus
RSVP by Dec. 3 to
cboozcr@accaging.org or 706-549-4850
Mail checks to 135 Hoyt Street Athens, GA 30601
www.accaging.org
WHAT’S UP IN NEW DEVELOPMENT
Malt Sales No Great Shakes: Bringing a couple
thousand Methodists into town to drink malts
at The Grill doesn't give you carte blanche
when it comes to planning Athens' future;
unfortunately, that's exactly how things are
going to shake loose over the coming months.
That is, unless the perpetually concerned
Athens-Clarke County Commission rises to act.
Those elected folks do get to deride what hap
pens in the community, after all, but when the
questions and limited palette of possible solu
tions are defined by people outside of that
body, do they really have a choice at all?
Quick Planning for the Long Haul: Since
the SPLOST 2011 referendum passed over
whelmingly earlier this month, The Classic
Center, under the leadership of Executive
Director Paul Cramer, has apparently seen
that as a mandate to do whatever it takes,
including the hasty abandonment of
Hancock Avenue, a critical downtown
corridor, with minimal public input, to put
the pedal to the metal in constructing an
addition that is the second-largest project
funded by the referendum. Never mind that
people's "yes" votes on SPLOST were just
as likely motivated primarily by projects
such as a jail, bike trails or public safety
equipment.
The Classic Center expansion is the kind
of thing that's hard to undo once it's done.
A mistake is about to be made that we'll
have to live with for decades, until we
ultimately decide to fix it at considerable
expense. The arguments about which con
ventions will or won't outgrow The Classic
Center's current space are not compelling *
enough to rush through generational
decisions. Out-of-town visitors, although
they will pay for half of it, according to
an oft-cited statistic that 50 percent of
SPLOST funds come from non-ACC residents,
are not the only constituency affected by
this expansion, and the rest of us deserve a
fair chance to look at this thing closely.
Who Decides and Why?: By accelerating
this timeline in the way that it has, and
by the scale of its proposals, The Classic
Center's leadership has, intentionally or
unintentionally, taken on the role of plan
ning downtown Athens. They've done it
with limited and marginal public input, and
with scant consideration for how the derisions
about exhibit space quotas will radiate out to
affect tens or hundreds of acres of undevel
oped land on the periphery of the urban core.
This isn't just about closing off Hancock.
The question is whether a hasty addition to
The Classic Center will help or hurt the ambi
ance and atmosphere of Athens, which is what
really brings people—and conventions—here
to visit and meet in the first place. It's about
whether the economic viability of downtown
will hang solely on bar-goers and convention
eers, or whether a broader and more robust
economic development strategy lies beyond
the wild frontier that is Foundry Street.
A Lack of Options?: I agree with a bigger
Classic Center in principle, but the additions
they've been pitched so far are part of a
fairly haphazard solution to the facility's
needs. In order to achieve the bigger space
necessary to attract the ever-targer conven
tions we somehow feel we need (although
surely there ought to be new smaller conven
tions out there, too!), the plan is simply
to extend the existing exhibition hall into
the street right-of-way. Then, that wonder
ful courtyard behind the Fire Hall can simply
be enclosed to provide the necessary lobby.
Throw in a few acres of surface parking for
good measure, and voila!
The reality is that the goals of The Classic
Center (a hall big enough to house 4,500
people or so, along with affiliated pre-event
spaces) have been unnecessarily tied to the
existing hall. But the range of options up
for truly public discussion has so far been
restricted to those including the northward
it make sense to let that planning process
unfold before finalizing plans for the type of
game-changing construction that master plans
are designed to guide?
If we're not going to put the resources
we have for just this sort of problem to work
proactively, why have them at all? At the very
least, it would be nice to see the Downtown
Development Authority be as aggressive as The
Classic Center has been in arguing for what
will or won't work downtown. If The Classic
Center and its design team have said their
solution (based solely on the Center's needs)
E. DOUGHERTY ST.
HANCOCK AVE
WASHINGTON ST.
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■ •
* ■ ■ ■ »
CUAYTON ST.
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There are plenty of places to fit a room big enough for 5000 conventioneers that wouldn’t involve closing off city
streets. Have all other possibilities (some of which might include using property not owned by the county) been ex
plored, made available to the public, the mayor and commission, and then been fully analyzed?
expansion of the current exhibition hall across
Hancock, and now we have convention hall
engineers deciding the fate of downtown
Athens without even realizing it We may save
a few bucks by expanding The Classic Center
in the proposed manner, as opposed to using
otoer, more creative solutions, but itll cost us
in the long run by devaluing everything east
of it. A long-wished-fbr River District if it
ever comes, will likely grow to be stunted and
malformed, cut off from the lively nutrients
of cur current downtown. Untether the larger
hall from the existing footprint of The Classic
Center, and possibilities abound, not only for
the Center, but downtown Athens as a whole.
Other Factors to Consider: Even with all of>;
that on the table, we still haven't gotten to
how the folks actually responsible for.down
town relate to this. The Athens Downtown
Development Authority recently put out a
request for proposals/qualifications (RFP/RFQ)
for a downtown visioning study, as the prelude
to a Ml-fledged downtown master plan.
Surety that process should begin first! Doesn't
is the only viable one, and no other credible
agency is analyzing that, authoring alternative
scenarios, or otherwise being a relevant and
proactive participant in the conveisation, how
will the mayor and commission get the sort of *
objective and varied data necessary to make
an informed decision?
Let's See Action: You can't blame The Classic
Center folks, really. They're doing what they
ought to be doing, more or less, which is
fighting for the economy of downtown Athens,
with the convention space a? a primary tooL
In the absence of action from the mayor and
commission, and given the crawling pace
toward a master plan for downtown, The
Classic Center folks are pinch-hitting by fill
ing the vacuum of leadership in the crucial
planning of downtown's developing eastern
edge—even if they aren't being as transpar
ent or as considerate as they could and should
be. The real question is why none of the other
stakeholders are stepping up to the plate.
. . Xtvtfl Williams alhensrising^fiagpol8.com
I (WOLE.COM • NOVEMBER 24,2010
HE VAN WILLIAMS