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Did we really
learn that lesson?
ANOTHER DONE DEAL
*
Everybody who was around then is talking about dtja vu
in connection with The Classic Center expansion and recalling
the controversies swirling around the facility's original design
and construction at the beginning of the '90s. Back then, the
Classic Center Authority hired the New York City-based Polshek
architectural firm to design the center. The authority and the
Clarke County Commission worked with the architects on the
design, and then when they had it all ironed out, sprang it
on the public, which up until that time had shown very little
interest in the project, anyway.
The Polshek design stirred up a lot of interest. People found
it lacking in adequate space and interior accommodations, with
no room for expansion and a shopping-mall-inspired visual
blandness not in keeping with downtown Athens, not to men
tion that it required the demolition of the 1912 Fire Hall No. 1.
The Classic Center Authority and the Clarke County govern
ment got their backs up and refused to listen to criticisms from
the public, ultimately spending over a million dollars on the
Polshek design. Meanwhile, the Clarke County commissioners
became lame ducks when voters approved the unified govern
ment. The new government inherited the extremely divisive
mess, and the new CEO (mayor), Gwen O'Looney, was forced
to veto an allocation of still more money for Polshek to tinker
with their design, thus angering the majority on the commis
sion who had voted to spend the money.
Before it was all over, the public outcry forced a reconsid
eration of the Polshek design in spite of all the money already
spent on it, and in the end, the design of another firm was
accepted, which resulted in the present Classic Center, incor
porating the fire hall into a design far more in keeping with
the surroundings, with adequate space for the theater, kitchen,
exhibition halls and expansion.
The one lesson everybody took
away from the birthing of The
Classic Center was that citizens
should have been involved in the
process all along. The Athens people who rose up and rejected
the design of one of the country's most prestigious architec
tural firms proved themselves to be prescient and discerning in
regard to what their community needed in a civic center. *
Did we really learn that lesson? Once the latest SPLOST
passed last month, The Classic Center board fast-tracked
construction of an exhibit hall expansion that will close off
Hancock and thus block the last downtown through-street
to Foundry. Of course, there was citizen participation in the
development of this plan in the sense that it was sold to the
SPLOST citizen committee while the rest of us citizens, includ
ing Flagpole, were looking the other way. It was also sold to
county management as a done deal: the only way to get more
exhibition space is to extend the present exhibition hall at its
same level across Hancock. Everybody agrees that, yes, it's too
bad we have to close off that street, but it's just one block,
and it doesn't go anywhere anyway except down to Foundry.
There will be a perfunctory public hearing in January, and
then construction will start this summer. At that point, down
town Athens will be barricaded at Thomas Street. The so-called
River District between downtown and the North Oconee will be
cut off, and the vision of that area as the hatbral extension of
downtown cannot be realized. Moreover, once the Hancock link
is severed, Foundry Street becomes vestigial and will inevita
bly be cut off and converted into an alley servicing only The
Classic Center. If you don't believe that will happen, go stand
there on Foundry and visualize what it's going to be like down
there with Hancock blocked off.
As Kevan Williams wrote in the Nov. 24 Athens Rising col
umn in Flagpole, the point of all this is that one large entity,
The Classic Center, acting in its own interest, is in the process
of redesigning the eastern edge of downtown. At a Federation
of Neighborhoods SPLOST forum in September, we were assured
that the design of the Classic Center addition could still be
discussed. Since SPLOST passed, the only discussion has been
about how fast the addition can be built across Hancock.
We are about to lose any further opportunity for a voice
in how downtown should grow to the east after decades of
expectations that our town would at last flow down to the
river. As it now stands with the Classic Center plans, our town
isn't going anywhere.
Pets McComntoos edftorOnagpoie.com
THIS WEEK’S ISSUE:
NEWS & FEATURES
City Dope ...' 4
Athens News and Views
Paul Broun, Jr has an early Christmas gift for unemployed Americans: nothing.
Athens Rising 6
What’s Up in New Development
Dilapidated buildings, lactones and cities
WENTS
Hendershot’s Coffee Bar 7
Serving the Community
A new coffee bar/ music venue provides a cozy spot off the beaten trade
Film Notebook 14
News of Athens’ Cinema Scene
The acclaimed documentary Waiting for “Superman"is playing at Cine at least through Dec 2.
k m mm
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