Studer Community Institute

Lessons from Greenville

March 31, 2014
/ Reggie Dogan
/ economy

Pensacola’s downtown renewal is showing momentum. Upscale eateries, bars and shops are moving in once-vacant buildings. Foot traffic is up and parking spaces are filled. That’s good news. Even better news can be gleaned from city models to guide Pensacola along the road to more promise and prosperity. In the latest edition of The Atlantic are glowing examples of small- to medium-sized cities that are excellent road maps for Pensacola to follow. Greenville, S.C., is one of them. Similar to Pensacola in size, population and politics, Greenville has become an international model for downtown revitalization. Study groups from around the world, says the article’s writer James Fallows, come from cities around the world to analyze how Greenville has been able bring a smorgasbord of restaurants, national and local retail outlets, hotels, bars, residences and riverfront pathways to what had once been a boarded-up crime- and drug-ridden area. The fundamentals of any downtown renewal begin with a good vision, strategic planning and strong public-private partnerships. Greenville’s economic transformation, and subsequently its downtown revitalization, began in the 1970s following the loss of the area’s economic hub, the textile industry. Civic leaders moved ahead of the decline of the textile business and worked with a business-promoting state government to convince big American and international companies to locate and expand. With General Electric, Michelin and later in the early 1990s, the automaker BMW, moving operations to the Upstate, the Greenville region has had lower unemployment and faster growth, largely because of its ability to offset the loss of its biggest industry. City officials – a group of strong mayors and a cadre of professionals in the planning and economic-development agencies – led the downtown recovery efforts. One mayor faced opposition from merchants to make downtown more pedestrian friendly. Another one overcame resistance to build a baseball stadium for a minor league team downtown, at the site of an abandoned lumber yard a few blocks from City Hall. Now the ballpark, a replica of Boston Red Sox’s Fenway Park, is one of the featured attractions of downtown. Sound familiar, Pensacola? Remember how vocal opponents worked to derail the construction of a Community Maritime Park on a dilapidated piece of waterfront property before the project narrowly passed on a city referendum? Others decried downtown development as affront to the city’s laid-back, laissez-faire attitude. It wasn’t but a few years ago that Pensacola’s downtown was a ghost town: vacant lots, empty buildings, unfulfilled promise. About a decade ago, 486 businesses operated downtown. They’ve grown to more than 670 today. As Pensacola continues it renaissance, city and civic leaders would do well to study Greenville’s blueprint. There are some things they can learn - and use. If you visualize the Greenville model, the lessons are evident. The collapse of a strong industry, the recovery through public-private ventures and the vision of local leaders put Greenville on the right track to economic recovery and downtown renewal. Public-private partnerships attracted the big companies to South Carolina, brought downtown to life and now are supporting high-tech incubators in the city and science and engineering programs in public schools. “The good news is that it was possible to do all this,” Steven Brandt, of the Greenville News told the author about the recovery process in Greenville. “The bad news, for anyone trying to do it overnight, is that it required a purposeful and organic process for more than 30 years, with so many shoulders to the wheel.” Pensacola leaders, are you ready and able for some heavy lifting? We have models to follow. With strategic planning and a purposeful vision our leaders can keep the momentum to make our city an even better place to live instead of a good place to visit.

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