Carthage embraces new vision

11.10.2008

Main Street Carthage moved well off Carthage’s Main Street last week.

While a team of architectural and community planning specialists established that Main Street in the Leake County seat went a long way toward tying the community together geographically, the vision offered in a Wednesday evening, Sept. 17, town hall meeting escaped all those bounds.

So grand were the visions that Dr. Cheryl Morgan, at the end of the one-hour meeting, confessed there was so much that didn’t get covered.
“There are things we didn’t even talk about,” she said, “things like long-term possibilities for schools.”

Things the team presentation covered, however, often left the gathering of 70 or so local residents and business operators oooh-ing and aaah-ing.

Brought to Carthage under the auspices of the newly minted Main Street Carthage and Mississippi Main Street, the team of professionals spent Monday through Wednesday of last week surveying the town, its assets and its possibilities.
Team members included:
• Randy Wilson, director of design services for Mississippi Main Street;
• Dr. Cheryl Morgan, professor of architecture at Auburn University;
• Ben Muldrow, community identity and marketing specialist with Arnett Muldrow and Associates;
• Tripp Muldrow, urban planner;
• Bob Wilson, executive director of Mississippi Main Street;
• Jan Miller, program director, Central Division, Mississippi Main Street;
• Sam Agnew, program director, Northern Division;
• Belinda Stewart and Maggie Bjorgum, of Belinda Stewart Architects, Eupora;
• Sam Kaye, architect & preservationist.

Similar teams are slated to visit new Mississippi Main Street members Holly Springs and Winter Valley, in a pilot program bringing Alabama’s experience to Mississippi. Eventually 14 communities will participate in the two-year program funded by Appalachian Regional Commission and the West Alabama-East Mississippi (WAEM) Regional Initiative, the latter includes East Central Community College in its members and ECCC was represented in last week’s efforts.

The survey and assessment process, called a charrette, included an earlier town meeting, also in the Old Main office on Main Street, in which about 70 locals contributed to the effort. From there, working out of Ramzy Hall, the team complied information, projections and plans, part of which showed up Wednesday in a computerized presentation.

“We had a ball,” Morgan told Wednesday’s audience. “We found so much to work with here.”

Mayor Jimmy Wallace had said earlier the plan encompassed work for the “next 40 to 50 years.”

Morgan emphasized the plan, expected to arrive in final form in about two months, would require starting with cosmetic improvements, linked to hard work.
“We know it’s not just about make-it-beautiful-and-they-will-come,” she said, “but we know if we don’t make it beautiful, they won’t come back.”

Initial assessments focused on the strength of Main Street as a gateway to the rest of the town. “Gateways to us,” Morgan said, “are important to us because they are the areas that make the first impressions.