A little while back some local folks from Barrow Preservation Society teamed with the Winder DDA in an effort to secure a matching grant to restore The Granite Hotel.
The City Council voted in March to apply for the 60-40 matching grant before they voted against it when it was awarded in August.
That sounds vaguely familiar, but I can’t say that I blame them.
Money has been tight for the City, the County, the churches, local businesses, and local families for awhile now.
They just couldn’t justify putting the City on the line for almost three-quarters of a million dollars when other basic infrastructure improvements need to be funded throughout the city. While some councilmen expressed concern that their opposing vote would adversely impact longtime friendships, proponents of the grant understood better than anyone realized that the project just had not been developed enough to justify the City’s blessing or financial support.
So here we are going into winter with a couple of buildings in downtown Winder that need some serious work. In our throwaway mindset, we don’t recognize that it would be a whole lot less expensive to repair them than to replace them. We also don’t stop to consider how much more valuable is a restored original building to our community integrity than to tear down and build something that is “faux old” — it looks old, but it very definitely is not.
In our haste to create a history that never existed here, we design grandiose edifices that our ancestors never would have dreamed of building in Barrow County; they just didn’t define who we were.
Authenticity is strategic to developing a heritage preservation ethic and faux old buildings just don’t cut it. They’re better than nothing, but they need to be reflective of the type of buildings that our founding fathers would have built.
If you haven’t been to one of our restaurants in downtown Winder, you’re missing a treat. The culinary smorgasbord we have is the seed from which will grow a jam up hospitality hub if we’re smart. It’s going to take some foresight, planning, and community input so we can take our place with some of the Georgia jewels so many of you visit when you have a free day.
How did Madison or Milledgeville become the vibrant cities they are? It isn’t because they have a square or a college; it’s because they hired preservation planners who worked with the people there to capitalize on their heritage buildings to attract new business and new residents.
Instead of letting opportunities slip through their fingers, they found a solution that used their historic buildings downtown while accommodating the needs of the modern citizen. The result is what you experience every time you take a day trip to one of our middle Georgia jewels.
The folks in Madison have taken several of the historic houses and repurposed them into bed-and-breakfast inns, event centers like our own Constance Manor, or retail shops. Their turn-of-the-last-century school is now a museum with the auditorium transitioning to a concert and live performance venue.
An Atlanta developer has taken a former corner drug store, turned it into a sandwich shop with four condos upstairs. Meanwhile, a local retailer/developer has taken the former department store and an adjacent bookstore and begun turning them into a boutique hotel with conference center and restaurant. Both of these cities have become magnets for restaurants, shops, artist colonies, niche schools, and corporate headquarters or distribution warehouses.
It has taken the active support of the communities: volunteers distributing information and making presentations while other volunteers lend their time, skills and elbow grease to clean, paint, repair, plaster, glaze, and just generally pitch in wherever they can.
Community fundraisers slowly but surely generate matching funds so grant writers can create solid proposals to pique the interest of a preservation-friendly organization so they loosen their purse strings.
That old building may not be an architectural wonder or even one that most would consider beautiful, but that represents a significant piece of the community’s foundation.
Grant making preservation organizations appreciate that even when some local folks don’t think it counts.
Barrow Preservation Society is working to find solutions using our heritage buildings to contribute toward our communities’ futures. We would love to have your support as we get new programs and activities off the ground. We can’t do it alone and the buildings can’t fix themselves.
Contact Barrow Preservation Society at preservebarrow@windstream.net, see us on Facebook.com or call 678-425-9948. If we don’t roll up our sleeves, why do we think anyone else will?
Helen Person is a Winder resident and columnist for the Barrow Journal. You can reach her at helenperson@windstream.net.
As for the Granite Hotel, how structurally sound is the building? Renovation by volunteers is a great option, but nobody will endorse that option until the infrastructure of the building is sound. Those two buildings could bring a great deal of business into Winder.
I like your ideas, always have, and the problem is that everyone wants to help or lend ideas until you get to the point of actually doing something, we need to accept that the 316/bethlehem corridor is going to be the popular new attraction, and still find a way to bring the old town feel while financially stable look to downtown winder. The refurbished sidewalks were a good start, but we need more dedicated citizens to keep the torch going. right now, I don't see anyone willing to step up.