Zeigler-Natlie-2012By Natalie M. Zeigler
City Manager

The City of Hartsville recently hosted the development professionals of the S.C. Community Development Association as they toured cities in the Pee Dee. Showing them around drove home just how much investment and passion is being poured into our city these days. It seems every time you turn around now, something new and exciting is happening.

The visitors saw a downtown that is currently undergoing its most dramatic transformation in decades. The construction of the Mantissa Executive Suites and Spa and the Hampton Inn and Suites are rapidly coming to their conclusions, and the teams behind both of our new downtown hotels were on hand to explain how Hartsville’s assets – its people, its institutions, its industries – make the city an excellent investment.

Sonoco Executive Chairman Harris DeLoach offered insights from his many years of living and working in, and for, Hartsville, including the potential he sees from the community-driven leadership we are now enjoying from our officials and stakeholders. Curtis Lee presented on the steady accomplishments of the Community Foundation for a Better Hartsville, of which he is the board chairman. The Community Foundation has recently seen great success in everything from the Oakdale Neighborhood revitalization to the Residential Demolition Assistance Program, which has eliminated blight in many corners of town.

The development professionals also heard from a couple of the star programs with which the City of Hartsville has been working very closely: the downtown development organization, Main Street Hartsville, and the technology business incubator, the Duke Energy Center for Innovation. Had our visitors come a week later, they would have seen the impressive results of the Start-Up Hartsville business concept competition, a collaborative effort of these programs.

On May 20, Start-Up Hartsville announced two winning business startups which will both receive $12,000 as well as incentives to open downtown businesses this year, which were the handmade accessory boutique Seersuckergypsy and Retrofit sip-n-seat, a wine bar incorporating artfully repurposed furniture. All of the competing entrepreneurs amazed us, honestly, with their inventiveness, with their diligence and with their determination to open small businesses and create jobs in Hartsville. Perhaps best part of Start-Up Hartsville, though, is the news that we’ll have another round of competition this fall, opening up opportunities for more businesspeople.

We’ve been talking about a growing sense of excitement for Hartsville’s development for a while, but now it’s becoming electrifying. As a public administrator, I’ve never before had the chance to work in a place which has reached the promising position Hartsville has now obtained. The response we heard from the S.C. Community Development Association visit included many compliments for Hartsville — that we’re setting a high bar for small cities in South Carolina, that we’re full of fresh ideas and our energy is contagious. I was certainly glad to hear it.

Natalie Zeigler is the City Manager of Hartsville. For more information, call City Hall at 843-383-3015 or email info2@hartsvillesc.gov.