Are you wondering how to redevelop a former mill in your town? Then follow the Creative Give Back in 2020. This year’s winner is the Red Rose City Development Corporation in Lancaster, SC. They applied for Creative EDC’s help to redevelop a site that they hope will “eliminate another blighted area around the city and inspire a sense of hope and pride, and more importantly, economic opportunities for surrounding residents, in addition to providing an attractive landmark for the area.”
Their application noted that since the mill closed several years ago, the area has become “riddled with crime and is surrounded by other blighted properties.” It is in an area that has long been neglected and is desperate need of redevelopment. Lancaster is a small town of just under 10,000 people. It has many assets, like a campus of the University of South Carolina, but it also has challenges of income inequality, drugs, and blight. This is just the type of complex project with lots of promise on which we like to work.
We will work with the Red Rose City Development Corporation to define a scope of work that addresses the redevelopment issues of the mill. It will include community engagement to shape a vision for the redevelopment. It will also include quantitative analysis on what types of redevelopment uses are feasible. We will look at best practices of mill redevelopment projects. There are many examples in the three state region in which we work. If you have a best practice project and want to share lessons learned, please shoot us an email.
We’ll keep you posted via social media on the project throughout 2020. This promises to be an extraordinary year due to the unprecedented health and economic crisis. We, like all of you, will need bright spots and hopeful projects. This is just one of those.
In case you wondered how Creative Give Back winners are chosen, we don’t pick the winner of the Give Back. Each year we select a panel of thoughtful, smart people to independently pick the winner. A super big thanks to our 2020 Creative Give Back Panel!
- Carl Rees, ElectriCities
- Liz Dobbins-Smith, NCEDA
- Maureen Little, NC Community College System
The Creative Give Back is Creative Economic Development Consulting’s way to give back to the field of economic development. Look for the 2021 application process to open January 1. Send us your creative idea!