GA Focus - Dawson

The city of Dawson.

Episode Transcript

(00:10):
Welcome to Georgia Focus. I'm JohnClark on the Georgia News Network. The
city of Dawson in southwest Georgia isone of many small communities around the state
that has taken advantage of the GeorgiaDepartment of Community Affairs and other state programs
to build the city into fun,vibrant communities. Sean O'Connor, or the
Tarot County Chamber of Commerce, andDaniel Biever's president of the local chamber,
tell Dawson's story and just how thecity has grown as a result of these

(00:34):
programs. I'm sitting here in Dawson, my hometown, and I'm amazed at
what you guys have done at thistown in a short period of time.
I can't believe it. I don'tknow what to say. It's been remarkable,
and I knew you had some helpfrom the DCA and economic development and
all that that. I'm curious.Tell me how it started. Well.

(00:58):
When I moved here foreign and ahalf years ago, I saw a lot
of opportunity in the community. Havingmoved around a little bit in other parts
of the country and helped with economicdevelopment, and there are things I've seen
work other places that I could seecould work here. And one of the
things we had to start with wasshifting our attitude and our perspective and a
lot of the negativity in the community. And Daniel here, that's here with

(01:19):
me. Daniel Beavers and I becamegood partners in that with trying to shift
the way people were talking about theirown community. And then we started encouraging
people who wanted to start businesses anddo things here in the community. And
we started reaching out to the businessowners and trying to end the building owners
downtown and the community and trying toencourage them. And then we worked together

(01:42):
to get a rule zone designation fromthe Department of Community Affairs. We had
had a tour of Bainbridge, Georgiathat Paul Fryer that worked for Congressman Bishop
set up for us when we explainedat a community collaborative meeting to him what
we were trying to accomplish. Setup that tour. An Amanda Glover that's
down in Bainbridge has transitioned that communityinto this really vibrant hub in the area,

(02:07):
and we were so blown away byeverything she accomplished that we decided to
just use her as our guide andfollow her playbook of steps that she took
to transition downtown Bainbridge, and ifyou haven't been there recently, it's just
incredible what's happened there. It's totaltransformation and they had a lot of the

(02:27):
same issues we had. So oneof the things that she did is they
did a new plan, they gotthe rule zone designation, they put in
a blight tax, did some newordinances, and also really encourage people and
got the community behind what they're doing. So the rule zone designation was one

(02:51):
of the first things we did andwe got that through as of January first.
We got that passed last year,so that is giving twenty five percent
state income tax credit to buy abuilding downtown, a thirty percent tax credit
to renovate it, and then atwo thousand dollars per employee tax credit.
So that's really helped spur some growth. We also have some new leadership in

(03:15):
the community and the city and thecounty, so we're all working together for
the betterment of the community, andso that's helped as well. Each person
has known people that were able tobring people in and get people to invest
in the community. So we've hadnew businesses up and down the highway.
We've had ribbon cuttings down. Youcan talk about that. How did you

(03:37):
start this? How'd you get started? Well, I was asked to join
the chamber. Yeah, it wasa new experience for me. And when
you did it, you saw somethingneeded to be done here in Dawson,
which it did. It did desperately. What did you do to what did
you do? At that point?Luckily Sean came along and I hired him.

(03:57):
So, yeah, we we becamemore proactive. There was a blank
canvas here in Dawson, and luckilythe right people came in at the right
time, created the perfect storm andwe're reaping the rewards right now. Sean,
you're not from here, You're froma state, right and talk about

(04:23):
that. How did you get here? Sure, it's kind of a funny
story. I literally, you know. I had sold my house in Florida.
I was across the country up withmy mom. She had a couple
of surgeries, and I was wantingto move back to a small town that's
where I grew up. But youknow, we rebel against what we grew
up with. So I had movedto bigger cities and moved to a couple
of different bigger cities, but youreally start to miss the hometown feeling in

(04:44):
a small town. So I startedlooking for somewhere in a small town and
I found this website called old houseStreams dot com and UH and it had
dream homes listed on there that werebargains around the country. But I knew
I wanted warmer weather and friendly people, and I knew this part of the
South was real friendly, but I'dnever been here. So I found a
house on there that I fell inlove with, but I was across the

(05:05):
country, had trouble getting ahold ofthe realtor. When I finally reached her,
it was going to auction the nextday, so it was an online
option to sign up for the auction. I signed up, put a little
bit in, and I won thehouse. So it was kind of a
shock because it was fifteen thousand dollarsI won the house for and it was

(05:27):
an eighteen eighties, you know,three thousand square foot house on a third
of an acre downtown in the historicdistrict. And I was a little nervous
because even though that's a bargain,I didn't know what i'd bought sight unseen.
I didn't know what the town waslike but I got here, the
neighbors had mowed the grass, trimthe hedges, had a welcome basket on
the porch. Everybody here was sofriendly that I just fell in love with

(05:47):
the community and I got lucky.The house was actually it had forty years
of deferred maintenance, but it hadbeen renovated before that, so it was
a great house with good bones,and so I turned it into an airbnb
and that's what triggered me getting moreinvolved in the community. And as my
guests would come in, I gotguests to move here, I got them

(06:08):
to buy houses here, and sowe started creating you know, with I
meet a great guest that was wonderful, and they would stay for a night
or two and decide to extend formonths, and they'd want to get involved
in the community. And so we'vehad a number of people who have moved
here from Atlanta, from California,from Florida because it is you know,

(06:29):
good weather. At the same time, there's some great architecture and it's still
you know, on the precipice ofa renaissance and a gentrification here, so
we still have an opportunity for peopleto find bargains here, not quite the
bargain I found, but there's stillsome great deals out there. So that's
what brought me here. And what'sinteresting for me was what's kept me here

(06:51):
after I sold a couple other propertiesand had more resources to consider other places,
is I just fell in love withpeople here. They're just are so
warm and friendly. And I havefriends and family that visit me from other
parts of the country where they're comingfrom really beautiful cities that are really well
kept in nice neighborhoods, and theycome here and I'm always concerned they're going

(07:13):
to see our town is still alittle dog eared, and yet they fall
in love with the people here andto the point where they're haunted by it
and they want to come back,and they want to think about moving here.
And I've had a couple of friendsthat have visited that have moved here,
and more that are considering it.And that's what I think brought Daniel's
parents here too, And part ofwhat brought you here a number of people

(07:35):
we've known, you know, youwant to talk about your story with your
parents. I was born and raisedin Metro Atlanta and Cobb County, grew
up coming to Dawson to my grandfather'sfarm, fell in love with it.
When I got out of the military, had to make a choice of where

(07:56):
I wanted to go, and Dawsoncalled me home. I'm glad to be
here. You know, this isthis is my hometown. And I still
have a farm and I still comeback too. I feel I always want
to come back. My relatives unfortunatelypassed away, but I come back and
I knew there was something here.I knew this has got to be something
here that we could do. AndI'm glad to see you doing it.

(08:18):
And it's great. Now the theeconomic development stuff that you use, what
what is what's being used? What'sbeing done with that right now? What's
in the process here in Dawson.So we uh, you know, when
we're sitting in one of the placesthat you using the resources of the state
and an economic development created this buildingthat we're in right now as our Dawson

(08:41):
Main Street Theater and Cultural Arts Center. This was about twenty years ago.
A woman named Ronda Gordon ran theBetter Home Task Force and she acquired these
three buildings that she already had adinner leator group that she was involved in
and they had kept growing, sothey acquired these three buildings and was belts
at one point at JC Pennies anda radio station, and so the three

(09:05):
buildings were slowly renovated using volunteers,grants, loans, and they've created a
first class dinner theater, regular theateras well, and a commercial kitchen,
a ballroom upstairs, classrooms, offices, and so this has become a vibrant
hub in the community where we canhave all kinds of programming and theater and

(09:30):
dinner and we're getting ready to considerputting a restaurant in the building. So
that's one piece. We also haveanother building that the downtown. This is
owned by the Downtown Development Authority.We have another building that was donated to
us, which was the Hill andHill Cotton Warehouses. So we just got
some appropriations funding from Senator Warnock's office. We're getting one hundred thousand dollars towards

(09:54):
that, and then we've got somepublic commitments towards that building. We're creating
there a farm market and micro businessincubator so that it'll do retail micro businesses.
So and then the farmers Market ina way is also its own business
incubator. With people who are youknow, doing crafts or or farmers or

(10:16):
whatever. So that's another piece ofwhat we're doing down there. And so
those are a couple of the piecesthat we're using right now. Dawson is
an example of what can be donein a small, little small town.
You see small towns you ride throughthem, they're they're they're falling away,
they're falling And Dawson was like that. And this is example of using that
economic development that that grant you haveand turning it into something. And look

(10:41):
where we're sitting now. This isthis is the place. This is a
place that would have been just nothing. It would be nothing, and now
it's a theater. What would yousay to other cities, small towns,
because I know people are in they'rein Atlanta and they want a lot of
people Atlanta never even go outside Atlanta. They got to go outside Atlanta and
check out the real Georgia. Whatdo you tell people other small cities,
Hey, get over here, takea look at what's happening in our town,

(11:03):
and you can do in yours.Yeah. One of the things that
we did is to try to incentivizepeople to come here or people who are
here to take pride in their communityand try to make something happen. And
you know, one of the thingsthat you know, a lot of places
are trying to become a tourist destination, and you know that you know,

(11:24):
this is also with since COVID,it accelerated a lot of people learning online,
working from home, shopping from home, and a lot of people have
the option to work from home now, so it's made a lot of people
want to leave some of the bigger, more overpriced cities and move to some
of the friendlier small towns where theycan now work for home. We finally

(11:48):
have fiber in our community, sothat's made it even easier for people with
reliable internet that's now also going throughthe whole county. So that's that's another
thing that's helped. The other thingthat we've tried to focus on and that
we're working towards is that, youknow, you want to attract a creative
class of people who want to createsomething, and you also want to we're

(12:09):
so close to Albany and we're aregional hub for you know, about a
couple hundred thousand people are within thirtyminutes of us, and we were once
a hub in the in the regionand we're hoping to become that again.
And one of the ways you dothat. You know, it's hard and
hard for retail businesses to survive withall of the online shopping, but if
you can create an authentic experience forsomebody, you know, whether that be

(12:31):
a restaurant or retail destination. Whensomebody does do retail, we're working with
them to try to encourage them tohave an online presence as well so they
can make sure they survive. Butwith a lot of the restaurants that are
coming in, we've encouraged them tobe offer something that will create an authentic
experience for people and have some entertainmentin the community that also will attract people

(12:52):
from the region. You've gotten alot of those. A lot of residents
have open here recently. I meanjust they flooded the about what did what
does that? What did you doto do that? That's that's been a
team effort. You know. Partof it is that, you know,
the numbers are working. You know, the highway here that comes through has
had more and more traffic every year, depending on the day of the week.

(13:15):
Now there's between eight and fifteen thousandcars a day going by. And
fortunately when the highway was put in, it only bypassed our downtown by one
block. Other communities that bypassed themsometimes by a mile, so that you
know, you can still see ourhistoric downtown when you pull through. And
so just based on that formula,some businesses that are more chained businesses have

(13:37):
come into the community, but otherones we've got a city manager and a
code compliance person who worked in neighboringcommunities and Albany Perry Americas who knew people
that could they could try to bringin. And then as people have come
to us, Daniel and myself,we've tried to encourage them to open something

(13:58):
here and how a presence, andyou know, we found ourselves having to
do ribbon cuttings, you know,every couple of weeks, if sometimes not
every week, which has been greatbecause you know, four years ago there
hadn't been any new business in thecommunity for quite some time, and so
now we've had this proliferation of newbusinesses and it's it's it's exciting because they're

(14:18):
each striving and there's more and morebusiness all the time. You want to
talk about some of the ones thathave opened, and you've been here.
What if you noticed the travel center, it's going to change the dynamic of
the city. Has a three squaresdiner in it gives people a place to
stop, where take a shower,a proper place for truck drivers to stop.

(14:41):
Great great food at the three squaresdinner. Change the dynamic of the
shopping center that was mostly vacant.Half the shopping center was torn down to
create this. We now have anAce Hardware. We have three hardware stores
in town, Short and palulk Aand True Value. So there's there's steps

(15:05):
being taken to get the needs ofthe community. Field and food is with
all the travelers we have, we'regonna have plenty of options for the travelers.
We're going to get them to slowdown and stop take notice of Dolson.
We're gonna we're gonna change our dynamicsas more of a destination instead of

(15:30):
just what would you say, Sean, Yeah, before that, people would
just pass by. And now andand people throughout the region when I go
to conferences, are just shocked bywhat they've driven through here because a lot
of people will bypass. I saidseventy five to take the highway we have
out here because it's a much quickerway to get to Atlanta or North Georgia
or travel south. But now they'veseen all this this new construction here.

(15:54):
We got a new dairy Queen wasone of the first things that was built.
And then we had a jactionally readopen. We had a new medical
clinic open up. It's an immediatecare clinic called care Connect. And then
Dawson Medical was a smaller clinic thatPhoebe had. They built a new building
that offered more services and even dentaland it's a full service clinic they built

(16:18):
I think that's around nine thousand squarefeet. We just did the ribbon cutting
for that recently. Then we hadBig Chris opened a restaurant. Do you
have JC Wings another place they justbought a building their opening. There's a
woman named frees To Clyde that's tryingto open a restaurant across the street.
We have another woman named Tammy Waldenwho's opening a restaurant called The Vine in

(16:41):
an old cotton warehouse, so sheshould be opened early next year. That's
gonna be a really nice place.We have a couple of gentlemen who catered
as our guest chefs our last playhere. We had over the weekend.
They were a huge hit. They'replanning to open a restaurant here. Downtown.
We have what was a thrift storefor years just sold and that's gonna
a guy named Lee Epley is openinga micro brew place and a gourmet pizza

(17:06):
place there. And then we haveanother couple that bought the old Psalters Vet
clinic and an old historic building.They're putting a cabinet shop with a retail
showroom in there, but they're alsogoing to do it's a large building,
so the wife is a caterb soshe's also doing an events a little small
event center with catering out of thatbuilding. So there's a number of things

(17:29):
happening. It's really exciting for usto see all this happening. Subways built
a new building that's about ready toopen, so they're just finishing the last
of its construction. So it's youknow, it keeps you know. We
had a Mama Rita's. It wasan old pizza hub. It's a nice
Mexican restaurant. They bought that buildingrenovated in a few months. They've had
other locations. That's become a vibranthub in the community. And then Sanjo's,

(17:53):
which was an existing restaurant, theywent ahead and renovated their building.
That happened. We've got a tacobell that's coming in. Uh. So
it's it just keeps happening. Wehad a wing place just uh that we
had just sold to a new ownerwho has reopened that, and there's yet

(18:14):
another restaurant next to that that somebodyis getting ready to do. So it's
kind of exciting for us to seewithin just a few years how many new
restaurants and businesses have been opening.It's bringing Dawson back to how it was
when I was around, when Iwas here? Are you saying that I
am? I am is exciting touh to witness uh and be a part

(18:36):
of So what are you going todo now? We've been working with a
company called Deep South Foods who wasinterested in reopening our Tyson plant and Daniel
has worked closely with me with them, and so they're just about ready to
purchase a building correct hopefully yeah,hopefully yeah, and that that if that
comes through, because we've been workingwith them for about a year and a

(19:00):
half now. And so when weTyson Plant coasts in town, we lost
three hundred and fifty jobs that wereour largest employer. So with Deep South
Foods potentially coming in and reopening facilityhere in the community, that's going to
create initially about one hundred and fiftyjobs and they're planning to ramp up to
around three hundred and so that's goingto really help the community. What about

(19:23):
real estate like homes? What aboutthe homes. I see homes being fixed
all around town and everything, butwhat about the homes. You know,
it's if somebody locally lists with therealtor, it becomes a feeding frenzy,
and we're having the homes sell forhigher and higher prices and faster and faster,
which has been exciting. You know, it's we're still you know,

(19:47):
the one good growing pain we're havingis that we do have a shortage of
housing, you know, so itis a struggle for people looking for something
to rent or to buy. Theinventory. You know, we need more
people to actually uh put their houseson the market that are just sitting in
vacant, and that's gonna happen asthey see more and more value. That's
going to change. But we're excitedto see you know, all of that

(20:10):
growth as well. This is justtaking come along, it seems like in
the last few months or so,but it has though so many things the
last few months have opened up aroundhere. I'm thrilled at the progress of
Dawson because look at like, likelike you said, Dan, when people
would think about it before they livedhere and they thought, well, nothing's
gonna happen there. Oh, nowthings are happening, and that's got to

(20:32):
be exciting, right it is?It is? Yeah? Is that that?
That what you like? You likethat? Yes, I'm very pleased
with the progress. And so Ihope in ten years where we've got bigger
problems like you know where where we'regoing to build a subdivision and things like
that, and so those all theseare good problems to have so with growth.

(20:56):
But it is very exciting to see, well with the beautiful old towns,
and Dawson certainly is one, andthen you have Cuthbert, you have
you know, Wherever Leesburg, whateverwe have that there's so much growth that's
there in those towns. You don'thave to go to Atlanta anymore or making
or somewhere. You can just stayright here in Dawson. And I think

(21:18):
now the places to eat, it'sphenomenal. You just go to stay in
Dawson. Is that that's sort ofwhat you do? Are you doing anything
with the hotels they come in?Any hotels? The two hotels we do
have in town one of them,both of them have had some renovations done,
so we do still have a needfor a little bit more boutique or

(21:38):
upscale housing. One of the thingswe've been encouraging our airbnbs. When I
first moved here, it was oneof the first things I did. We
had a large solder project happening inBrownwood. It's just five six minutes from
here, and so there were fourhundred people working on that project. Most
of them were staying in Albany.I had my Airbnb, and I was

(21:59):
booked for over a year with peopleworking on that project. And I met
a young woman who had taken overabout fifty rental houses and most of them
were slum properties, and she wastrying to get them renovated to be sold
in the meantime. Well, Iencouraged her to turn a number of those
into airbnbs because that kept those peoplein our community, and then they would

(22:23):
patronize the restaurants and the stores hererather than going all the way to Albany,
and so it was a win win, and we just kept encouraging people
to open airbnbs because that not onlyhelps we get part of that hotel motel
attack that we can use for economicdevelopment. So that's one of the things
that we have done, is justto keep encouraging the airbnbs. And there's

(22:45):
been plenty of business for everybody,and we you know, long term,
we would like to see a smallinn, you know, that we can
showcase the community from and we're hopefulthat we can make that happen as well.
Well, I'm just I'm amazed atwhat I've seen here so far.
I'm so glad I got to meetyou guys and talk to you. Is
there a website you can go to. We have a website called Downtown Dawson

(23:07):
dot net and people are We alsohave a Facebook page. Then we have
also we have a website for theChamber of Commerce that is Terrell GA dot
com uh and we also have Facebookpages for each so we try to keep
things posted on there. And theother thing we're doing is there's Thomas and

(23:29):
Georgia had had a successful program theywere introduced to which was called Community Heart
and Soul program, and it's designedto revitalize small US cities. A wealthy
guy up in Vermont started this programand they started it started starting to spread
around their country and it's a newkind of organic way to do community planning
where you spend a year and ahalf to two years trying to interview everybody

(23:53):
in the community, get their opinions, their dreams, what they'd like to
see chain and then you boil thatdown to twenty or twenty five things that
you try to accomplish, and soyou're not just normally when they do economic
development studies they just do a boilerplatething with a few voices, and this

(24:15):
it gets the whole community involved.They were so successful in Thomaston that we
decided to do the same program.Brooks County is doing it along with ARRELLD
County. So we've started that andthe great thing about the program is it
captures the stories of the people inthe community while you're doing it, and
it also interconnects people so they getto know each other more while we all
figure out our common goals. Sowe're about six months nine months into the

(24:40):
program, and so far we've hada great outpouring from people in the community.
They're really excited to get involved andget interconnected with each other and share
their stories, and so that's beenanother piece of what we've been doing that's
helped. It has a domino effectbecause it also just helps us communicate better
and make sure people know what's goingon on and get a chance to be
involved. Well, it's been verynice. That's great. Sitting in here

(25:03):
in the sitting in the Bell SlashDollar General. This is fill in now
theater next to the radio station.This is great. This is great.
I really appreciate it. Thank you, guys, Yes, thank you.
I want to thank Sean O'Connor andDaniel Beavers from Dawson for being my guest
on today's program. To find outmore about Dawson, visit Downtown Dawson dot
net. To visit the Chamber ofCommerce, go to Tarrell GA dot com.

(25:26):
And if you have questions or commentsabout today's program, then you can
email me John Clark at Georgiannewsnetwork dotcom. Thanks for listening. I'll talk
to you next week right here onyour local radio station on Georgia Focus