Leadership in the City of Clinton was thankful this week with the announcement of being successful in a competitive application to be named as a Main Street City. The person praised for putting the successful application together was Jerre Threatt, Director of Community Relations for the City of Clinton. We spoke with him after the announcement was made Tuesday afternoon.
“We’re very excited about being involved with the Main Street program and getting selected for this. It’s a competitive process, and we were lucky to be one of the two communities that were included this year.”
In addition to the Main Street announcement, South Carolina Main Street Director Bippie LeGrande announced that Clinton has also won a competitive grant to fund planning for a project in the Industrial Supply block at East Main and North Broad. We asked Jerre Threatt about that.
“Well this was a separate grant from the Municipal Association of South Carolina. It’s called a Hometown Development Grant. We applied to develop a Master Plan for the Industrial Supply complex, which is right downtown. It’s more or less our warehouse district. And so the plan shows a welcome center that is based on the original 1950s train depot that was once on the site, an open air market, fountains, a retention pond with water features, landscaping and renovated buildings with new spaces. This would be an economic development tool that we would use to reach out to private developers to do more of the development of the buildings. The city would hopefully do the public infrastructure like brick streets and walking trails and green space, and all the other public utilities there.”
With so much talk lately about bringing the Swamp Rabbit Trail through Laurens and Clinton, and final planning now underway through the Laurens County Trails Association, we asked Jerre Threat if he envisions being able to tie in the redeveloped Industrial Supply complex into the Swamp Rabbit Trail.
“That’s a great observation, and yes, I think that this would be potentially a connector to the Swamp Rabbit Trail. I’m not sure if this would be called the Swamp Rabbit Trail, but it certainly could be that if the trail were to come with this route.”
We asked him about his future plans for developing Downtown Clinton as well as for developing the Industrial Supply block.
“I think this will encourage a public space for residents and visitors alike to come Downtown and have a place to congregate….to have restaurants… to have walking access. It brings people Downtown in the evenings, on the weekends. It’s just a great space.”
We asked Mr. Threatt if he envisions having performances or other special events going on in the Downtown Area to provide an extra lure to bring people downtown. And we asked what goals he has for bringing more people to Downtown Clinton.
“I do think the welcome center and the outdoor market would serve a similar use to the existing Depot we have on the east side of Main Street. But the west side of Main Street, if you had this park put together, it would be a safer space. You wouldn’t really have to close streets off to do this. You could have small events. You could have larger events. It would be a great place to have any kind of open air event like that.”
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