Downtown adapts to student needs

Downtown Milledgeville strives to capture the patronage of college students through renewed aesthetics, revamped services and adaption to social media.

Bill Massey, owner of Middle Georgia Cards, Coins & Comics, has operated his store since 1990. He has seen downtown shift from retail to service business and remembers when students were hardly a factor in downtown businesses. According to Massey, shops preceding the buffet of establishments now located downtown included a bookstore, a fitness club, a video game arcade and several clothing stores.

“When I came down here in 1990, there was probably one bar here and maybe a couple of restaurants…that’s the biggest change,” Massey said. “Now you got just about every other business in the food and alcohol business.”

Before college students became a critical factor to business success, downtown traffic was driven by an older crowd.

“The college wasn’t as near as big as it is now, therefore I don’t think the businesses down here were focused on Georgia College as they are now,” Massey said. “When the college has grown as big as it has… you pretty much have to now, have to cater (to college students).”

Jack and Darcy, a new clothing boutique on South Wayne Street, caters to the fashions of young women. According to Rachel Phillips, the owner, social media is an important aspect of promoting the store to students.

“We do some kind of different sale every day,” Phillips said. “We advertise (through newspapers), but we mainly go through Facebook.”

The Facebook group provides an online shopping experience with photos of the current merchandise posted as well as new deals every day. Jack and Darcy isn’t the only business utilizing the networking site. The French Vill’Edge allows users to view merchandise before wandering downtown, Amici announces upcoming bands and trivia nights as well as deals, and the FolksArt displays available art classes and artist receptions.

While individual stores offer incentives and updates online to attract students, Milledgeville Main Street works on a larger scale to keep students involved downtown according to Executive Director of Milledgeville Main Street Belinda Washlesky. Students remain a constant influence in projects such as the Deep Roots Festival and Milledgeville Marketplace Farmers Market. Deep Roots gears all its evening entertainment to the college and the farmers market remains near campus to encourage student participation.

“There were discussions of having (the farmers market) a little further out,” Washlesky said, “but we wanted to have it close enough that students could walk or ride their bikes to their market.”

Milledgeville Main Street also tries to alleviate downtown issues such as parking for students and all customers. Main Street strives to keep parking prices low downtown and is currently working on an educational brochure that highlights often overlooked free parking lots. Safety is another key concern.

“(During the streetscape project) they had undone all the lights and it was so dark that I fussed about how we had to get some extra lighting out there, so the final end result of the streetscape will make it a lighter, brighter, safer sidewalks on mainstreet.”

Like the Streetscape project Milledgeville Main Street also attempts to keep downtown looking its best. Façade grants are available to businesses to encourage the exterior maintenance and revitalization of buildings. These grants match the funds the businesses use to improve their façade up to $1,000.

In addition to the ongoing traditions and events, a new program dubbed First Friday is in the works and is waiting approval.

“What we want to do is the first Friday of each month we would have from 5 (p.m.) to 7 (p.m.) or 5 (p.m.) to 8 (p.m.) downtown we would have artists that would sign up to be street performers like playing the saxophone or guitar,” Washlesky said. “We hope to kick this off no later than February of next year. We feel like that would keep people downtown longer on Friday evenings.”

Main Street provides prospective new businesses with relevant information about locating downtown. They supply a list of downtown properties available with square footage and prices; important phone numbers like the Chamber of Commerce and utility business, and incentives including employee tax credits that come from downtown being a designated opportunity zone.

Downtown is constantly adapting to the flow of college students and will continue to evolve to cater to their interests.

Posted by Rebecca Burns on Oct 8 2010. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.