The Main Street Statesboro and Downtown Statesboro Development Authority held their annual meeting at the new Ag South Operations Center last week. The meeting served to give downtown merchants and community leaders an update on our downtown’s progress during 2018. Last year’s Brick Award recipient, Three Tree Roasters, catered the event.

Allen Muldrew, the DSDA executive director, along with members of his board and staff, reported on highlights of the year, which included a total of 129 events hosted that brought more than 52,000 visitors downtown.

With a full-time staff of two, the Development Authority rely heavily on volunteers to pull off all of their events. During 2018, 1,743 volunteer hours were donated to support the DSDA. They oversaw 30 businesses either entering or expanding in downtown, which created 97 new jobs.  Fifteen buildings were rehabbed and eight new housing units were constructed. The total private/public investment in downtown exceeded $2.2 million.

Highlights for 2018 included the completion of Ag South’s downtown campus; the opening of the much anticipated Dog Park, Homes for Hero’s completion, the West District development, the Blue Mile improvements and The Creek on the Blue Mile project.

Each year, the DSDA presents the “Best Brick” awards given to individuals who have made a tremendous impact on downtown. The awards include an engraved black plaque attached to an actual brick recycled from downtown renovation projects. 

This year they focused the awards on individual volunteers who made an incredible difference in our downtown. 

The 2019 Downtown Volunteer award was given to several individuals who have gone above and beyond for our downtown. The recipients were Tony Kwolek, Kenny Griffis, Kelly Kahley and Mike Henderson, who received their awards primarily for their work with the Homes for Hero’s project.

The 2019 Downtown Dog Park award was dedicated to excellent, hard-working individuals who worked tirelessly behind the scenes to make the dog park become a reality. The recipients were Dr. Kania A. Greer and Robert Seamans.

The 2019 Teamwork Award was dedicated to Jordan Wilburn and Urkovia Andrews who have become the glue that holds all projects together through their leadership and teamwork skills. They are also instrumental in getting Georgia Southern students interested in volunteering downtown.

The final award was the Excellence in Service award presented to Destin Doe. Doe is a Georgia Southern student who committed four years of service to DSDA, working as a community liaison for Georgia Southern University office of Leadership and Community Engagement.  Doe has many accomplishments –cfrom designing websites to event management to leading and training our interns and volunteers. 

 “The continued success of downtown relies on the commitment of the merchants, our partner agencies and most importantly the continued support of our citizens to support downtown merchants and events,” Muldrew said. “The merchants and I hope to see you all downtown shopping, dining and being entertained soon!”