‘Downtown Comeback’ visit providing initial results

Providing Polk County with additional opportunities to attract tourism, business development and overall growth is one item that local officials seek to tackle on a daily basis.

Now some outside advice is starting to come in that if taken up and crafted to also get local support, it could mean a lot of positive outcomes for the area.

That’s the hope for people like Polk County Chamber of Commerce Executive Director Blair Elrod, who spearheaded a recent visit from a group of HGTV Home Town stars from Laurel, Miss., and just last week from state tourism officials will benefit Polk County tourism and business growth.

“I think that one thing that came from it is that it energized both cities,” Elrod said in an interview at the beginning of October.

She added that a conference call was coming up with the stars of the show, and those additional ideas and takeaways from their visit, along with a full report, will be forthcoming.

The late September visit of The Rasberrys and Nowell on a tour of Polk County and a special event at Victory Baptist Church provided the cities and county with a starting point: draw in more people to the downtown areas, and investment will take off.

The initial takeaways she said were some good ideas provided from the group that are already seeing action taken.

“I know that the City of Cedartown is looking at an idea given to them, and the City of Rockmart and the City of Cedartown and both are looking to install the lights that go above the downtown area,” she said. “It’s exciting. I think it’s reenergized the cities.”

Elrod pointed out the visit from the HGTV stars out of Mississippi is just a starting point.

That’s the same feeling for Cedartown City Manager Bill Fann, who also just last week helped host state officials who came to look over Cedartown, Rockmart and the surrounding areas.

Fann said a group of six state officials from the Georgia Department of Community Affairs, Department of Economic Development and Northwest Georgia Regional Commission spent Oct. 9 and Oct. 10 in the area on tours of downtown Cedartown and Rockmart, along with a visit to Hightower Falls.

He said they had a chance to look over the city’s recent additions to the downtown area.

“They were really excited about the Coke Museum, the new relocation of the Polk County Historical Museum and many more things that are coming up as well,” Fann said.

One of the outcomes of the visit from the HGTV group and state officials has been the formation of a committee of Cedartown city officials along with community members who seek to come up with opportunities locally to continue to draw people into the historic downtown area.

Fann said that one of the goals is to also promote the downtown area for creative business opportunities as well.

“We’d like to hold additional downtown events, and continue to use our film industry use as much as possible,” he said.