Will youth be served in downtown Florence push?

“What do we want?”

“Downtown revitalization!”

“When to we want it?”

“Now!”

That may not have quite the zip or catchiness of the anti-war (and other) slogans of the 1960s and ’70s, but it sounds just fine to the folks behind Downtown Now the latest plan to get Florence’s downtown redevelopment program rolling.

The group has more than a few things in common with Peaceniks of days gone by. They’re passionate about their cause, they’re frustrated by the establishment, they’re organized using the grassroots model and they’re young.

That last may be the most intriguing aspect of this newest push. Launched by the renamed Historic Florence Foundation, the Downtown Now-ers are kicking off their drive Thursday with a public meeting at St. John’s Episcopal Church of South Dargan Street at 6 p.m. A brief presentation will be followed by a question and answer session. For those interests, suggestions for action will follow that.

Although manned with plenty of old hands — among the presenters at Thursday’s meeting will be long-time historic preservation activist Agnes Willcox and veteran arts leader George Beshere — the group’s signature is its young blood. The core of its still-coalescing leadership is a bunch of 20- and 30-somethings who see saving Florence’s crumbling downtown as the key to building a place where people like them will want to live for years to come.

Tara Durden, one of the group’s youthful leaders, said, “I think what you have is a group of younger people who are looking for a place where they can be proud to raise their families. We all think Florence can be that kind of place, but we’re not sure it’s quite there yet and downtown redevelopment (or a lack thereof) is clearly the biggest issue we’re facing.”

Adds Beth Martin, a 2009 College of Charleston graduate, who returned to her hometown (Florence) in large part because she wanted to become involved in the downtown revitalization work, “Florence is just not known, right now, as a cool, hip place, where a lot of stuff is going on. But it could be. … It’s exciting to be a part of something like this.”

The youth movement is adding both vitality and variety to the slow-moving downtown redevelopment campaign. Durden and others are neighborhood activists from the Timrod Park community. Victor Webster is a businessman who initiated a downtown cleanup campaign. Martin is a native with a passion for historic preservation; it was her college major.

The youngsters’ energy excites campaign veterans like Beshere. “The young people, I think they may be the answer,” he said. “They’re bringing something new to this effort.”

Their youthful enthusiasm may be new, but the newcomers’ analysis of the problem is not. Martin said she has no big stars in her eyes when she contemplates the possibilities for downtown.

“We’re not talking about turning it into New York City or something,” she said. “We just want it to compete with other places in South Carolina. We think that’s possible, if we can just get going. That seems to be a hard thing to do.”

Using other South Carolina cities as a measuring stick echoes the sentiments of Willcox, Martin’s preservationist mentor. Willcox, who helped save Poynor School from the wrecking ball back in the mid-1980s, shakes her head while pondering the list of cities in the region that possess a revitalized, or at least a partially revitalized, downtown. It’s a list that does not, of course, include Florence.

“Sumter, Conway, Dillon … even Bishopville’s for heaven’s sake,” she said. “It’s just embarrassing that we’re so far behind.”

The push, albeit often a gentle one, to redevelop the downtown area is nothing new. In fact, it’s at least a decade old. And while there have been some triumphs — construction of the new library, theater and performing arts center; creation of crowd-pleasing events like the Pecan Festival and Florence After Five — the basic problem still exists. The old commercial area, centered on the intersection of Dargan and Evans streets, remains a dilapidated mess without much promise for change.

Meetings on the subject were held in the late 1990s, money was appropriated for consultants and plans were drawn. The Downtown Master Plan, which depicts a vibrant, artsy Florentine core, has been revised twice since it was completed in 2002. As noted, a few recommendations have come to fruition, but for the most part the plan has gathered dust — right along with Florence’s inner city.

“The city has drug its feet for years,” said Beshere, a Charleston refugee who arrived in Florence in the mid-1980s. “We just haven’t had that charismatic figure to lead the charge the way they had in Charleston, Greenville and other places. But we just can’t wait any longer. The buildings are crumbling and if don’t move soon we’ll just wind up tearing everything down and starting over and that will take a long time.”

Thursday’s meeting is the start of a political campaign to put pressure on the city council to do something. The meeting has no official city backing and neither the Greater Florence Chamber of Commerce nor the Florence Downtown Development Corp. is directly involved, although both those groups are very supportive of the revitalization idea.

Pete Mazzaroni, chairman of the Florence Downtown Development Corp., said, “We’re not behind this, but we’re happy to see any group get behind (the push for downtown revitalization). The more different groups you can bring to the table, the more momentum we get, the sooner this is going to happen. We’re very interested in what they’re doing.”

Meeting organizers are hoping for a good turnout. Attendees should leave better informed about the current situation, and ready to march on city hall — figuratively, at least.

“We’re just trying to get started on building some squeaky wheels,” Durden said. “Squeaky wheels are the ones that get heard. We’ve got to have a bunch of them. We’ve got some lined up and we hope to find some more (Thursday night).”

The group’s immediate goal is to push council to finally adopt the Downtown Master Plan.

Coincidentally or otherwise, that’s probably in the offing. The council is already scheduled to take up approval of its newly updated Comprehensive Master Plan early next year. That plan, crafted by yet another group of consultants at a cost of $150,000 (and growing), wholeheartedly embraces the idea of downtown revitalization and the downtown master plan itself. Indeed, the concept of a revitalized downtown is one of the comprehensive plan’s key tenets more verbiage is devoted to that idea than any other in the document.

City manager David Williams said, “The comprehensive plan hasn’t been approved, but that’s certainly on the agenda and the downtown plan would be a big part of that. I think we’re headed towards reaffirming the city’s interests and commitment there.”

Council is bound by statute to adopt some plan. It could revise the document that’s currently on the table, dropping the downtown plans, but few observers think that’s likely. Although there are political stumbling blocks — creating, enforcing, maintenance code for downtown property owners is particularly problematic — the council really has little choice. It’s obvious that the downtown area needs work.

Said Mazzaroni of the Florence Downtown Development Corp., “We’ve got no reason to think the city won’t adopt the plan. We think everyone is on board.”

Adopting the plan would be a useful first step, but hardly a final one. The plan itself calls on the city to provide both leadership for the idea and support for the private interests who will really carry the main load. The plan doesn’t specifically call on the city to pour tax money into the district, but one way or another that has to be part of the solution. City investment could mean partnering with private developers through the use of tax abatements, or issuing Tax Increment Financing (TIF) bonds. The TIF instrument, which uses the increased taxes derived from fresh development to pay back the capital investment required to make that development happen, has been in place for several years. So far it hasn’t been used, however.

It’s that kind of glacial movement, or lack thereof, that can drive downtown proponents, both young and old, crazy.

Beshere, now 64, worries he’ll never see the long hoped for downtown re-do. Durden worries that if it doesn’t start happening soon, there won’t be any young people around left to enjoy it.

“How do you keep the Monster.com (a new corporation that located an office here recently) people here? What will attract and keep our young professionals?” she said. “If there’s nothing to do, it won’t be long before they’re gone to Charleston or something. Yeah, we’ve got an Olive Garden and an Outback, but that’s not really growth. That’s not going to keep us here on the weekend.”