PHOTO BY JOHNNIE DANIELS/THE DILLON HERALD

By Betsy Finklea
Mayor Todd Davis presented a plan to revitalize Main Street at a recently Dillon City Council meeting.
Davis referred to an article that appeared in The Dillon Herald written by a citizen questioning whether the city was seriously discussing plans for downtown revitalization. Davis said this was a legitimate question and was a question that many were asking.
He said the answer was that the city had been addressing it for a number of months, but it had not been brought to council until last month. Davis said he along with Revitalization Coordinator Maggie Riales and City Manager Glen Wagner have been working on this several months and have been visiting various places and hoped to piggyback on some of the ideas. Davis said he was not immune to copycatting a successful plan or implementing other people’s success.
Davis said they had 7-8 empty buildings on Main Street, and he thinks it is the most opportune time to address Main Street.
Davis said they have a condemned building where they cannot find the property owner located three or buildings from Price’s Furniture. He said there are some things that other communities do when a building loses a roof and that this can be turned into a positive from a negative.
He sad the news on the inland port will hopefully lead to growth which should lead to growth on Main Street. He said they have opportunities on Main Street if they are ready.
Davis then outlined what he plans to do to address Main Street.
Davis said the first step is to take an inventory of the unoccupied buildings on Main Street.
He said they will need to meet with property owners and stakeholders of occupied and unoccupied buildings. He said the city really cannot do much if the property owners do not buy in.
Davis said they will incentivize the property owners to enhance their buildings.
“Businesses can thrive on Main Street,” said Davis. “I believe that.”
Davis said they will start the revitalization in a selected area on Main Street and update the council and community every month from here on out.
Davis said in his opinion, Maggie Riales, has a new primary job going forward along with the improvement of the ballfield. He said she will need assistance from the codes department.
“It’s time on Main Street,” Davis said.
Riales spoke about the three-day seminar that she attended in Hartsville where she gathered a great deal of information.
She also spoke briefly about the Preservation Tax Incentive that as passed in 2008. She said this was for residential and commercial properties. She said no one was interested until now.
The incentive is would allow the owner to have his property value assessed at its lowest level. For two years, the owner would get a tax break to get the work down and they after that get six years of tax credits making it a total of eight years that the owner would pay the lower amount of tax. The maximum that the state allows is 20 percent, but most towns do around 10 percent.
Councilman Phil Wallace asked if 10 percent was enough incentive. He said with what they would have to invest and what the return would be, 10 percent of a real low tax is not much incentive.
As far as the condemned building mentioned earlier where they cannot locate the owner, Riales said that there used to be a store in the front and a pharmacy in the back. She has someone interested in buying the building, but they cannot locate the owner.
Wager said they need to offer some kind of incentive.
Davis said one of the problems is that property owners can’t get the rent they need to fix up the property and they can’t fix up the property without the rent. He said it is a death spiral that has been here for decades.
Davis said what the city can help with is from an eye appeal standpoint from the facade to the curb. He said they can consider helping with facades, signage, paint, flags and poles, planters, etc. He said Bennettsville looks 20 times better on Main Street by fixing up the fronts of the buildings. He said it doesn’t necessarily mean that the building is occupied, but it looks better.
Councilman Johnny Eller said this goes back to what he has been trying to say about grants. He said that Riales said they cannot apply for a grant until they have a project that they are working on. He said that’s what Bennettsville did—they got a grant. Riales said they applied for that grant, but did not get it.
He said he thought that there are other grants that they could get that could help the city, and he thought that she should look into that.
Riales said she was currently looking into an economic development grant where they city could partner and sub-grant to some of the people on Main Street.
Councilman John Braddy said when the city spent the $2.3 million on downtown revitalization some years ago, they worked on the infrastructure and put themselves in a position to take the next step. He said with the game-changing announcements about the inland port and Wyman-Gordon coming into the community there were new good jobs available that would improve the amount of spendable money that the City of Dillon will have. He said he expects growth like we haven’t seen before. He spoke about the wide Main Street and said Dillon has a viable Main Street. He said the level of vacant buildings is not as high as some other places, and they have somebody capable of doing the work. He said he was glad to see the council working on this, and he would personally volunteer to help in any way that he could. Braddy also mentioned that some of the work they took up in their earlier effort had not been completed as far as amenities, planting, benches, etc.
Riales commented that she would like to go forward as she first started with a committee of six to eight people to give here direction and for her to moved forward on that. Braddy said they needed to get the property owners and stakeholders involved. Davis said they needed a Main Street Association to get involved.
Davis said they will focus on the amenities from the facade to the cub and have to decide what the incentives are.
Davis said he had gone and visited Florence three or four times. He said Florence had a number of investors; he said Dillon may when they do something. He said Florence wouldn’t be doing what they were doing if were not for Francis Marion University and the Bruce-Lee Foundation. He said Hartsville has Sunoco and was a college town. He said Lake City is an arts town and has Darla Moore. Davis said Dillon hasn’t found a benefactor.
Davis said he didn’t feel that the city needed to spend the money to join a Main Street program. He said he felt that could piggyback on the ideas of other areas.
He said they do have the market analysis done years ago.
Davis addressed the condemned building. He said if they had to knock it down, they could do a pocket park or pass through, and it doesn’t take a lot of money. He said it could really be an asset.
Davis then presented this idea. The idea is to set up a meeting of the property owners of the buildings. If the building has been vacant for more than a year, the owner can become a part of an economic stimulus package to revitalize Main Street. A suitable entrepreneur would be located and would lease the building for $1 a month or $1 a year for 12-24 months. The tenant would pay the remodeling fees for the building. The tenant would be freed from the cash flow it takes to buy the building. The tenant would pay the property taxes, insurance costs, and must have a business plan. If it doesn’t work out, the building owner is left with a much better building that has been occupied. If it does work out, the building owner and the tenant would have a set price for rent or to by the building. Davis said this would create a lot of excitement on Main Street and would have a domino effect.
Wallace expressed concerns about some buildings being in such poor condition that the property owners would have to do something before someone could go in. Davis said this applies to some buildings, not all.
Braddy said that this idea would make the property and the tenant partners in the business. He said it puts somebody trying to start a new business with something trying to help. He said he was excited by what he saw.
Davis said that this was just a plan, and they would have to sell the property owners on it.