2/7/08
Downtown Manning shines with new façades, new businesses
By Eric Goold and Jerriod Grizzle

JERRIOD GRIZZLE/Manning Times

Thanks to the efforts of downtown Manning business owners like Jeffrey Black, the city is experiencing a major and much appreciated revitalization.

“We’ve got a lot of things going on in downtown. It is booming and will continue to,” said Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Dawn Griffith about downtown revitalization.

Griffith explained that the Chamber building was set apart intentionally.

“Our building is warm and friendly as well as historic,” she said. “We wanted some one to say that we were the building with the awning.”

Griffith’s statement about a booming downtown will soon be the words on everyone’s lips if all goes to plan.

In a meeting of downtown business owners and city officials Jan. 15 at Manning High School, Manning was officially recognized as the newest member of Main Street South Carolina.

Mary Adger, currently the administrative services coordinator for Manning, was part of the first group of officials to apply for Main Street status when she was interim City Administrator about a year-and-a-half ago.

“I’m glad to see that it is going to happen,” said Adger. “It will bring together the revitalization efforts in the city as well as the various groups in the community. The city has been looking for a way to form partnerships and share beautification ideas throughout the community. Certainly it will help the merchants downtown, as well as help businesses in the community,” she added. “We’re all going to pull together to make revitalization happen. It’s not an immediate process; it will take some time, but it will happen.”

City Administrator Rebecca Rhodes agreed that there would be benefits once the Main Street program is fully underway in Manning.

“It makes some very good resources available to us,” said Rhodes. “The market analysis that will be done and the various design tools, those are things that will help us. It gives us access to a lot of things normally we’d have to hire out for.”

The Manning City Council passed a resolution on Sept. 17 last year and committed to participate in the Main Street Program.

“I’d like to thank everybody involved who helped make this happen,” said Mayor Kevin Johnson. “I think this is going to be a great program for Manning.”

Main Street South Carolina is a nationally recognized program that uses a locally driven plan to revitalize older, traditional business districts and follows a national model that gives local citizens the knowledge, skills, tools and organizational structure to revitalize downtowns, neighborhood commercial districts and cities into vibrant centers of commerce and community.

Business leaders are very hopeful that the Manning downtown area will soon be bustling.

Jeffery Black, owner of Studio 1916 on Mill Street said the reason he built 1916 as it is, is because he wanted to see a very busy downtown.

“Our vision was to do something very different, a place that would feature several businesses under one roof,” he said. “For businesses to compete in downtown I think you have to create a space that becomes a destination for customers.”

Black said that he could see Mill Street as a destination for all kinds of people.

Business leaders in Studio 1916 have the same reaction with their dreams for downtown.

“Studio 1916 fits well into the downtown revitalization to try to get people back to the downtown district,” said Beautiful Image Centers’ owner, Dr. John Sherman. “A lot of small towns need this and we are a small part of a bigger entity.”

Denise “Cissy” Sams said she was excited to see this change-taking place.

“I’m very excited, it is very unusual to have this in a small town, and I think it reflects forward thinking on the part of the city,” she said.

Other Main Street cities and towns included Bennettsville, Florence, Conway, Great Falls, Hartsville, Marion, Beaufort, Laurens, Lancaster, Orangeburg and Summerville.

One new downtown business owner, Camey Dozier of Sweet Sensations said she could definitely see the benefit of revitilization.

“I see the growth that is coming in the area so we wanted a product in the downtown area,” Dozier said. “Manning has been a hang out spot for me through the years and I know the market is there. Revitalization helps bring businesses back to downtown. People like to go to attractive places to shop. It will bring people back.”

Main Street Manning will be located in City Hall and will be managed by Adger. Adger and Rhodes will work together along with Beppie LeGrand of the Municipal Association of South Carolina to get the ball rolling.

“The next step is to have a training meeting with myself and Mary and Rebecca,” said LeGrand. “We’ll talk about committee structure, recruitment and training issues. There’s a lot of information to go through and there’s a lot of work that needs to get done. This is a process.”

LeGrand said that Manning’s application stood out.

“The commitment by the city was incredibly strong,” said LeGrand. “I was happy to see that. I work with a lot of different cities and I’m always happy to see when they step up like that.”

There will be a downtown press conference and ribbon cutting to welcome Manning into the Main Street family on at 11 a.m. on Feb. 11. A grand re-opening celebration of Studio 1916 will follow at noon.