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KEVAN WILLIAMS
WHAT'S UP IN NEW DEVELOPMENT
Again and again, this town ranks high on
lists related to arts and college towns. It's not
the parking decks and convention halls that
have caused this success, though; indeed, the
successes for which Athens is known have all
happened in spite of the best efforts of the
unified government. While every public build
ing, school, bank tower, hotel, parking deck,
fire station or doctor's office may take on the
same bland character, there are still some
quirky elements that occasionally get through
in Athens. Economics will do what bad policy
couldn't, though, at least in the most visible
and urban areas of the county. Gentrification
is pricing out the artists and musicians for
which Athens is so well known, to be replaced
by student-oriented bars. Could downtown
Athens one day simply be a rowdier version of
Statesboro, Clemson or Auburn?
With gentrification limiting opportunities in urban Athens, could small towns
and former industrial sites (such as the Wellington Puritan Mill) become the
new hubs of the regional arts community?
In the meantime, where do artists and
musicians go, if they are to retain the prox
imity and sense of community necessary to
maintain a world-recognized scene? If the arts
community and culture from which Athens has
derived its primary successes and notoriety
are to continue and to thrive, the members
of that community have to start thinking of
themselves not only as pioneers in an intellec
tual sense, but also in the sense of where they
choose to locate and cluster.
Already, there are many examples, func
tioning with varying degrees of success, that
could provide starting points to create new
models for artistic communities. The Oconee
Cultural Arts Foundation (OCAF) inhabits the
campus of a former school in Watkinsville,
renting spaces for studios and hosting public
classes. The Chase Street Warehouses complex
is a slightly more urban and private model,
with sections of 6ld cotton warehouses sold
off and renovated by various individuals and
businesses. The Orange Twin Conservation
Community is a planned conservation subdivi
sion with plenty of room for planned studios
and workshops. There are also more informal
congregations in small towns like Bishop,
Comer and Union Point.
While it's arguable that a creative coloniza
tion of some small town is gentrification in
its own right, the most successful examples
above are those which took vacant and
unused buildings and repurposed them, fill
ing a ceded void. The reuse of existing infra
structure for a fraction of the cost necessary
to build new is a primary factor in the most
successful local artistic colonies. A second key
feature of those more successful communities
is the ability to grow organically, reclaiming a
storefront here and a cotton shed there, rather
than tackling a massive area all at once.
Starting from scratch to form a completed,
master-planned community is much more
difficult.
Another factor to consider is how these
concentrations of creative spaces relate to
the community in a broader sense. Cycling
and alternative transportation are much more
integral to the local creative class than the
general public, and so looking at regional
trail projects could provide a good sense of
where to establish new creative economic
hubs. Fortunately, these places are also where
industrial uses were historically clustered,
and where features like shoals, once good for
hydroelectric power, now translate into good
swimming holes.
While old mills might
make for good sites, they
do seem rather over
whelming at first glance.
If the owners of such
properties begin to view
these relics not as asym
metrical wholes to be
turned into condo com
plexes, but architectural
evolutions and aggrega
tions comprised of many
independent pieces, more
visually unified by the
nature of their prior pur
poses than by their archi
tecture, they might find a
way to put them back to
use and make a buck as
well. Atlanta, Augusta and
Columbus are more known
for the monolithic mills,
while our local ones are much more rambling.
Many proposals have been put forward that
have tried to apply that Atlanta condo treat
ment to our mills, but they've mostly been
unsuccessful, with many sitting vacant for
decades regardless of the visions of their own
ers. However, the salvation for these historic
structures, and their new life, might come
through the more organic pattern intro
duced by communities like the Chase Street
Warehouses. Otherwise, it may be another
decade before the local real estate market will
bear an Atlanta-style condo conversion.
As the local food movement picks up and
farmers' markets sprout throughout the region,
it's also easy to imagine those old townships
being more fully revived by entrepreneurial
settlers, provided an ample supply of space
is available to build a critical mass. Some
small towns may just be too small for a suc
cessful arts burg to take off, which is why we
hear much more about Union Point, Comer or
Watkinsville than we do about Carlton, Maxey's
or Good Hope.
Whether in upland railroad towns or riv
erside mills or somewhere else entirely, if
Northeast Georgia wants to retain its arts
identity, with all the economic vitality that
brings, then the importance of community and
place can't be underestimated. While down
town Athens may be a victim of its own suc
cess, pushing out the arts scene with higher
and higher rents, the rural draw could provide
the perfect alternative, with new creative
hubs established nearby on the vacant founda
tions of the former cotton industry.
Kevan Williams athensrising@flagpole.com
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