Florence Downtown

Florence leaders expect improved downtown to draw crowds, customers

Florence Morning News - December 31, 2007

By Charles Tomlinson

Florence’s leaders are looking forward to a year of new entertainment and commercial attractions, as well as places to live, in the city’s downtown.
A $200,000 federal grant will go toward renovations at 154 W. Evans St., across from the city’s new breezeway, said Phillip Lookadoo, Florence’s urban planning and development manager. The property’s potential uses are wide ranging, including retail, office space and residential.
The Florence Downtown Development Corp., of which Lookadoo is the executive director, obtained the U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Business Enterprise Grant, which it is loaning to the city.
Meanwhile, the city is using a $300,000, no-interest USDA Rural Economic Development Loan to reimburse the costs of the breezeway.
The money also will help pay for additional parking behind the breezeway to help accommodate visitors to the upcoming Francis Marion University Performing Arts Center and the future building where the Turner Padget law firm hopes to be the anchor tenant.
“Hopefully, we’ll see some activity on that site this year,” Lookadoo said of the planned Turner Padget site on the northwest corner of Cheves and Dargan streets.
The next step is for Florence Downtown Investors LLC to complete the contract by purchasing the acre of property for the building, Lookadoo said.
The Greenville-based Florence Downtown Investors suffered a loss when co-founder Caine Halter died in August.
The coming year also will bring the completion of the new Florence Little Theatre on Dargan Street as the theater finishes its final year of operations at its South Cashua Drive facility.
Downtown also will be home to the Francis Marion University Center for the Performing Arts. The city soon will review plans for the upcoming facility, Lookadoo said.
The Fitness Forum is planning a grand reopening at its Elm Street facility, near the Drs. Bruce & Lee Foundation Library.
The gym has updated its equipment and expanded its services. Earlier this year, the city approved plans to renovate the facility and add a full-service spa.
Another upcoming downtown endeavor is the completion of an exact replica of Cumberland United Methodist Church, which was demolished after it suffered extreme damage from termites. The new building will stand on the church’s original site.
Another project in the works is the Coit Village apartment complex, Lookadoo said. A Columbia-based group also has expressed interest in building a six-story apartment complex on North Dargan Street.
The city council also recently accepted a $625,000 loan to fund the environmental cleanup of the former Bush Recycling Center on North Irby Street, a key site in the city’s master plan.
Officials haven’t decided what the site’s new use will be.
The cleanup’s estimated total cost is nearly $1 million, for removal of contaminated soil and replacement of the excavated soil.
The city will fund the cleanup through grants from the state and the EPA, as well as matching funds.