Carrollton Hosts Georgia Cities Foundation Heart and Soul Downtown Workshop

The city of Carrollton recently hosted the Heart and Soul Downtown Workshop in partnership with the Georgia Cities Foundation (GCF) and the Harold F. Holtz Municipal Training Institute. The training institute is operated through a partnership between the Georgia Municipal Association (GMA), and the University of Georgia's Carl Vinson Institute of Government (CVIOG). This workshop provided participants with the opportunity to view actual plans, including the Renaissance Strategic Visioning Plan (RSVP), and projects with officials from the city of Carrollton discussing their downtown revitalization efforts, success stories, and lessons learned. The workshop utilized city officials and downtown practitioners who had first-hand experience with downtown development and explored their project funding resources.

Carrollton's Mayor, Betty Cason said, "The city was honored to host this year's Heart and Soul Workshop and tour. It is always rewarding to showcase our city to colleagues from around the state. In Carrollton, we firmly believe that a strong city core and a good team to implement projects is critical to the overall success of any community."

Participants heard presentations focusing on Carrollton's Tax Allocation District (TAD), their Downtown Master Planning Process, Public/Private Partnerships, and Georgia Cities Foundation and Georgia Department of Community Affairs downtown financial incentives.

Following presentations at Carrollton's Center for the Arts, Marketing and Communications Director April Saunders and Main Street Program Coordinator Alyson Moffit provided a walking tour for attendees highlighting the following areas of downtown Carrollton:

Following the tours, workshop attendees commented that they enjoyed seeing the finished projects that they had previously viewed in the presentation.

UGA's CVIOG Creative Design Specialist, T. Clark Stancil with the RSVP program said, "Carrollton's downtown economic development approach to support small, locally owned businesses is an essential pillar of sustainable economic development. The kind of investments in community infrastructure that small businesses need such as sidewalks, street trees, water, sewer, Wi-Fi, parks, also support the quality of life for residents and create economic opportunities. This is a community and economic development approach that focuses on people and places. It has led to Carrollton having a thriving downtown.

The city of Carrollton's redevelopment activities have taken time, but the city has seen a lot of success in the following areas:

The commitments from local elected officials, city staff, and citizen-lead committees have all worked together to remake downtown a thriving place to live, work, play, shop, eat, drink, vacation, build, and invest.