Elvington to retire in December

After serving 19 years as executive director of Hartsville Downtown Development Association (HDDA), Judi Elvington is retiring effective Dec. 31.

“It is time for others to ask, ‘What can I do?’” Elvington said. “While I will always be downtown’s greatest cheerleader, I’m excited about the new energy someone else will bring to the job.”

“I’m retiring but there is still a lot of life out there,” she said. “I don’t know what the next chapter of my life is going to entail. I have done the best I could do with the resources available to me. It has been a wonderful experience.”

In a position to hear comments from guests visiting downtown, Elvington said they are always impressed. Guests recognize what a gem we have in our downtown.

“HDDA is not one person,” Elvington said. “It has been a team effort.”

That effort, she said, includes the people who work downtown, the property owners, the business owners, city officials and workers, the community and the visitors. She said what has been accomplished in her 19 years at the helm of HDDA couldn’t have been accomplished without each and every one.

“I love downtown; my heart is downtown,” Elvington said. “I want to see it continue to prosper and grow, and I think the best way to do that is for me to make way for someone new. We are looking for new board members and new committee members as well to help move the downtown forward.”

A native of Hartsville, Elvington said she hadn’t lived in Hartsville for 10 years prior to accepting the position. Her return was prompted by her marriage to Jack Elvington.

During her absence from her hometown, Elvington had worked at various jobs in the Myrtle Beach area including managing two optical shops. She taught a continuing education class at Horry-Georgetown Technical and held a job in outside sales for the Myrtle Beach Chamber of Commerce.

After agreeing to interview for the position, Elvington was hired on Nov. 17, 1990.

“It was a Monday,” Elvington said. Her predecessor had already moved on, and the HDDA Board of Directors had been running the program, spearheaded by Bobby McGee then president.

“He hired me and helped me with my first official duty which was putting up Christmas lights on the trees downtown,” Elvington said. “We spent the day climbing up and down those trees. There were 68 trees.”

With events already on the agenda, Elvington said she wasn’t given much time to get her feet wet. After all, the holidays were approaching. That Friday she was to be the mistress of ceremony at the Christmas tree lighting ceremony in Centennial Park.

“[That first year] was stressful. I got married, had a new job and a new family in a new town,” Elvington said. “It has all been a blessing.”

Promoting downtown Hartsville has been a rewarding experience, too, she said. The projects and awards have been numerous during Elvington’s time as HDDA executive director.

“I’ve worked on some exciting projects from the ground up,” she said. “One of the first things I was involved in was the grassroots effort to keep the Hartsville Library downtown.”

“On my second week at the job, I went to the Darlington Library for a meeting of the Darlington County Library Board with a team representing HDDA to make a presentation in support of keeping the Hartsville library downtown.” Elvington said.

Some people involved with the decision making process wanted to move it out of the downtown area, Elvington said. HDDA wanted to keep in its current location. She said HDDA lobbied for an adaptive reuse of the old Winn-Dixie building on College Avenue.

“We won the best Adaptive Use Award (from Main Street S.C., formerly S.C. Downtown Development Association) for the library project, and in three years, they were adding on,” Elvington said.

The award was one of three won in 1994. The association also won Best Public Improvement for Centennial Park and Best New Construction for SPC Cooperative Credit Union Drive Thru.

Hartsville has the distinction of winning more awards than any other Main Street program in South Carolina, Elvington said. Since HDDA started entering contests in 1989, there have only been a few years when Hartsville hasn’t won an award, one year because nothing was submitted.

“We have won nearly 50 awards,” she said. “With this many awards it shows Hartsville is committed to downtown revitalization.”

Several HDDA sponsored promotions have earned the Outstanding Promotional Event of the year including RenoFest Bluegrass Festival, and several of the downtown business owners have been recognized with the Master Merchants Awards including Brandi Wheeler in 2005, owner of LuLu’s Clothing Boutique and the current board president.

“RenoFest is the musical event that has brought people from across the country and brought national attention to our downtown,” Elvington said.

Elvington is proud of the accomplishments of the downtown merchants, property owners, the City of Hartsville and HDDA.

“One of our main purposes is to maintain and protect the historic character of downtown through its buildings,” Elvington said. “We have become a benchmark for others wanting to revitalize their downtowns. We have hosted many groups from other communities wanting to learn from our success. We have led the way. We were begun by an aggressive-forward-thinking group of people.”

She said Joe Cothran, former president of the Bank of Hartsville, was the catalyst behind the project. She said he looked out of his window at the bank, now Bank of America, and saw all of the empty buildings, the visual decline of downtown and said, “This won’t do.” One entire side of a downtown block was vacant with the closing of the J.L Coker Store, the Hartsville Post Office and the Pedigreed Seed Co. Many other buildings in the downtown were vacant and boarded up.

Elvington said he gathered together a group of 50 to 55 individuals who he thought had a vested interest in seeing the downtown revitalized. At the time the S.C. Downtown Development Association was brand new. Members of this core group went to Columbia and then to Pennsylvania to be trained for this program.

Incorporated in April 1987, HDDA’s mission is “stimulating and creating opportunities for investment in Hartsville’s central business district through a balanced and organized program of Design Assistance, Promotions/Marketing and Public-Private Partnership.”

“We are a very targeted in our scope,” Elvington said. “We began as a four-block area.”

HDDA now focuses on Fifth Street north to Pinewood Street and south to Laurens Avenue as well as on Carolina Avenue, Home Avenue and College Avenue east to Coker College/Vista and west to Eighth Street.

Centennial Park and Burry Park are the crown jewels of Downtown which have given HDDA a place to stage many of its events, including the successful Good Living Marketplace in its second year and this summer’s first Hartsville Idol.

“I am proud that downtown has embraced new ideas, new people and new business,” Elvington said. “We have done a good job renovating most of the buildings downtown, and there are only a few buildings available for rent.”

She said Fifth Street and East Carolina have one available space each, College Avenue has no available buildings and West Carolina has two. All vacant buildings are not available for rent, she added.

“I have come to appreciate the individual sacrifices each business owner makes daily as they commit to keeping downtown alive with pride,” Elvington said.

“It is just time for me to step aside,” she said. “I’m ready to have some fun, to attend the great events going on downtown as a guest. Jack and I are ready for time together, time for the children and grandchildren. My youngest grew up walking the streets of downtown helping me with events.”

Between them, Jack and Judi had five children and now five grandchildren.

Elvington pointed out that all of her children have learned to appreciate the communities they live in, the need to volunteer, and one of the first things they want to know about a town they move to is how vital is their downtown.