Florence City Manager David Williams announced Tuesday the hiring of Ray Reich as Florence’s new downtown manager. Reich has held an almost identical position for the past 10 years in Sumter, where he’s the downtown development manager and the director of growth and development. He’ll start in Florence on July 5.
Reich (pronounced “rich”) has presided over a dramatic turnaround in Sumter’s downtown. Forty-eight buildings have been refurbished and more than $30 million invested there. Reich put together a number of structures to aid development in Sumter’s downtown, including a consortium of lenders who provide low-interest loans for downtown projects.
It’s a work that’s still in progress. As he departs, Sumter’s first new downtown apartment project is nearing completion and a new downtown hotel project is under negotiation.
Among Reich’s first tasks in Florence will be shepherding the recently announced downtown hotel project on West Evans Street through the city and county approval process.
That’s fine with Reich, who said he is eager to get going.
“I’m excited,” he said Tuesday. “It was time for me to turn the page and Florence offers some very exciting prospects. I hope people realize this isn’t going to happen overnight, but we can do what we’ve in Sumter here and more. Florence has a lot of assets that Sumter didn’t have. I think everyone understands that.”
Among the assets that impressed Reich was the financial clout of the Drs. Bruce and Lee Foundation, and the city’s downtown master plan, which has been crafted over parts of two decades.
“It’s a great plan,” Reich said. “I read over it. I’d say I agree with 99 percent of it. If we just work the plan we’ll be fine.’”
Williams said the fact that Reich was from Sumter didn’t make as much difference in his decision to hire him as what Reich did while he was there.
“It’s not about proximity,” Williams said. “I had never met him before our interview. But we were aware that someone had done some good things in Sumter. His experience there, he’s learned some lessons that will be a big benefit to us.”
Williams said Reich’s salary will be “in the upper $70s.” The exact amount is still being negotiated. Williams said about 20 people applied for the job.
Reich is filling a new position in Florence, although the city has had downtown managers of a sort before. City council agreed to hire a downtown manager, as opposed to an overall economic development officer, last spring after months of wrangling.
Williams said then he’d like to have someone in place by July 1.
“I guess I didn’t do too bad with that,” Williams said Tuesday.
The 58-year-old Reich is a West Virginia native who came to Sumter 31 years ago when he purchased a radio station there. He eventually owned three radio stations in the state, as well as some other businesses. He sold the stations to Florence-based Miller Communications in 1998, retired for a few years and then decided that wasn’t for him.
“I thought I was just going to be a real young retiree,” Reich said. “But mowing the grass and hanging out just wasn’t very rewarding.”
He became Sumter’s second downtown manager in 2001, taking over an embryonic initiative designed to make something of a downtown that had “basically been neglected for 30 years.
“It’s been a steady process,” Reich said. “That’s how it has to be. You build it up incrementally. I’m looking forward to doing that again.”