By Natalie M. Zeigler
City Manager
The time has come again to reflect on the year which is almost gone, and I’m glad to say that it has in many ways been another good one for the City of Hartsville. More and more, the developments taking place all around us are making our community a more attractive and potent place, and one with a bright future.
Consider the attention which many have been placing on one of our greatest assets: our downtown. A focal point of Hartsville pride and of many local businesses, downtown has grown significantly with new hotel and entertainment development going into place. The number of occupied storefronts have hit a new high-water mark in recent memory. With several projects, most notably the repaving and streetscaping of East College Avenue now set for the spring thanks to the allocation of Multi-County Business Park funds, 2015 is going to be another big year for downtown.
Main Street Hartsville, the downtown development organization born of a partnership between the City and the Community Foundation for a Better Hartsville, has been playing a significant role in everything that is happening downtown, covering everything from design work to coordination of special promotions. The organization has recently even demonstrated how well new ideas can take hold downtown, with the success of “Hartsville for the Holidays,” the pop-up shop featuring local vendors’ crafts and other products.
Like Main Street Hartsville, the Duke Energy Center for Innovation took off last year as a partnership between the City and the Community Foundation. Also like Main Street, this technology business incubator began delivering on its promise in 2014 with its first-ever graduate business: FME Nuclear Solutions, which is now providing customized industrial software out of its downtown location. Both the Duke Energy Center for Innovation and Main Street Hartsville recently partnered to create the “Start-Up Hartsville” competition, which will provide financial and support incentives for two winning business ventures to begin operating out of downtown in October 2015.
In 2014, City has been capitalizing on investments elsewhere as well, including the Byerly Park Recreational Complex, where the Piratesville Splash Pad, a recreation opportunity for kids first built last year, had its second and best season yet, with more than 20,000 day tickets sales from all around the region. Various community organizations also came together to build a better Byerly Park in the last year as well, with such new features as the Born Learning Trail incorporating educational opportunities into recreation, and Garrison’s Place, a new playground installation opening up the park’s possibilities to children with physical disabilities.
In 2014, the common thread of many of the great things happening in Hartsville is that, increasingly, we’re realizing the benefits of all the good work done by the people who love this city. Because of it, we have plenty of reasons to look forward to the year now rapidly approaching.
Natalie Zeigler is the City Manager of Hartsville. For more information, call City Hall at 843-383-3015 or email info2@hartsvillesc.gov.