Last Friday, the RSVP (Renaissance Strategic Visioning & Planning) Program Steering Committee met for the first time in Thomson. RSVP is coordinated by the Carl Vinson Institute of Government at the University of Georgia and is designed to assist cities in revitalizing their downtown areas.
Throughout 2019, the Steering Committee will seek input from the public and UGA students and faculty, as well as other cities that have already participated in the program, such as Cordele, Gainesville, Brunswick and Hinesville.
At a recent Archway Partnership meeting in Athens, Georgia Power, led locally by area manager Kerry Bridges, contributed $25,000 to help cover a portion of the costs of the project. The Thomson-McDuffie community is raising additional money from local business owners and other stakeholders to go toward plan implementation.
RSVP was developed as a result of the Special Downtown Development Task Force created by then Lieutenant Governor Casey Cagle and Georgia Cities Foundation President Mike Starr. The task force recommended the creation of the Georgia Downtown Renaissance Partnership. The Partnership, consisting of the Georgia Municipal Association, the Georgia Cities Foundation, and the University of Georgia, working in cooperation with the Georgia Department of Community Affairs and the Georgia Downtown Association, was established to help cities and local leaders focus on the importance of downtown planning and visioning.
Cities selected for the RSVP program work with UGA faculty and students over nine months to create a development strategy designed to guide each city’s downtown revitalization efforts. The RSVP program helps cities generate a vision, action plan and short-term work program through a three-stage process of public input and engagement, visioning and design, and implementing a work program.
RSVP is among several ongoing, UGA-related projects in Thomson-McDuffie. Thanks to the Archway Partnership, students and faculty from multiple UGA colleges are in town working on projects in a number of areas. College of Environment and Design graduate student Ben Proulx is currently working on a landscape plan for the new government building and a renovation of the Thomson Twin Cinema façade, Terry College of Business students are developing a feasibility study and marketing plan for the cinema and are also developing a Community Resource Guide, just to name a few.
The Archway Partnership is a unit of Public Service and Outreach at UGA. It connects Georgia communities to the full range of higher education resources available at the university to address critical community-identified needs. Thomson-McDuffie is one of 13 communities selected for the Archway Partnership since the program began in 2005.
Writer: Baker Owens, baker.owens@uga.edu, 706-542-1667
Contact: Rob Gordon, gordon@uga.edu, 706-542-3268