Momentum Builds for a Truly Connected Core
Macon’s civic commons 2021 in pictures
The past year has served to reconfirm the importance of a robust, nature-rich public realm that is welcoming to all. From health and wellbeing to environmental and economic resiliency, our parks, trails, libraries and community centers are critical civic infrastructure that provide multi-faceted benefits for communities. Today, the sixth in our series of photo essays reflecting on public space efforts in cities across the country features the civic commons work in Macon, Ga.
The Macon Civic Commons team began its year by developing its cross-sector alliance with monthly meetings where partners share ideas and create opportunities to collaborate. These monthly meetings have led to increased collaboration among partners, new ideas for using public spaces, and creating new audiences for the events taking place along the corridor. Through this discourse, the group has galvanized around our project of expanding the Ocmulgee Heritage Trail to inner-core neighborhoods in a robust way. These are just a few examples of efforts that exhibited the principles of Reimagining the Civic Commons throughout 2021.
The Heart of Macon Beats Loudly
Rosa Parks Square, one of the primary nodes of the Ocmulgee Trail Network in downtown became a key place for events that brought diverse audiences to downtown Macon. From an event honoring Macon’s own Little Richard, to a TED X event on why certain leaders are so devoted to Macon, to launching several public efforts to create a more vibrant and safer community, Rosa Parks Square became the place to exhibit the best, truest hearts of Maconites. Rosa Parks Square also reached a significant milestone in completing planning documents that will kickoff a major renovation of the park in 2022.
New Events Highlight the Best of Macon’s Culture
Along with the events in Rosa Parks Square, all along the path of the trail new events popped up that celebrated the best Macon has to offer. The First Street Arts and Wine Festival brought together multiple arts agencies and local breweries to bring people together in the large expanded sidewalks in downtown Macon. Project BAAD relaunched in 2021 and highlighted several parks in downtown Macon bringing unique entertainment and new audiences to downtown’s median trail system. Outside of downtown new events in Pleasant Hill and an expansion of the Macon Film Festival included films shown Mill Hill and Pleasant Hill for the first time in festival history.
New Homeowners Grace Mill Hill and Pleasant Hill
A major goal of Macon’s Civic Commons effort is increasing the number of homeowners in the neighborhoods of Pleasant Hill and Mill Hill. Thanks to the efforts of team members and public authorities — The Community Enhancement Authority and the Urban Development Authority — these historic neighborhoods saw more than 10 first time homebuyers take the plunge, adding more than $1,000,000 dollars to Macon-Bibb’s tax rolls. These agencies have provided affordable homeownership opportunities and financial assistance and training to help people grow the opportunity for intergenerational wealth and stability, adding to the vibrancy to these neighborhoods at either end of the Ocmulgee trail network.
Projects Come Back to Life, Accelerating Trail Efforts
The long planned Renaissance on the River project was resurrected in 2021 by the original developer after a long hiatus due to environmental concerns. In the meantime, Macon-Bibb County remediated the site and planned multiple enhancements to the highway adjacent to the site. With this project back underway, a road diet and trail expansion along Riverside drive will provide the critical connection to Mill Hill and the core of downtown that has long been missing. This $100,000,000 plus project will also accelerate trail connections into Pleasant Hill that have been lacking due to the wide highway that separates the neighborhood from the Ocmulgee River. These two connections were voted by the local team as the most important pieces of Macon Civic Commons effort and the Macon Action Plan that we can accomplish together.
Signs of a New Future for a Historic Cornerstone
On Tuesday, Dec. 14, 2021, a mural was unveiled in Macon’s Historic Pleasant Hill. The mural, “No Church in the Wild,” was painted by Central Georgia based artist, Kevin “Scene” Lewis, and highlights the site of the historic First Congregational Church also known as the Bobby Jones Performing Arts Center. The mural project, sponsored in part by an On the Table Macon grant from the Community Foundation of Central Georgia and Knight Foundation, hopes to further encourage activation of the space to rehabilitate the building which is a historic cornerstone of the Pleasant Hill neighborhood.
The building, erected in 1918, is currently “blighted” and sits across the street from the newly renovated Booker T. Washington Community Center. It has been on Historic Macon’s Fading Five List, an annual list of significant places that are threatened by neglect or possible demolition, since 2016. It is also included as an action step of the Macon Action Plan due to its position as a connector from Pleasant Hill to downtown along the trail’s pedestrian path. You can learn more at jonescafemacon.com.
Reimagining the Civic Commons is a collaboration of The JPB Foundation, the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, The Kresge Foundation, William Penn Foundation, and local partners.
