County needs to keep courthouse in city of Florence

Florence County Council in the next few months will face a decision that will have implications for the county’s future growth.

And that decision also will play a huge role in what happens in downtown Florence.

And as Florence goes, so goes the entire county and to a certain extent, the Pee Dee.

They will make a decision on whether to build a new courthouse downtown or consider moving it.

A move out of the city limits is probably against the South Carolina State Constitution.

Any attempts to move the courthouse out of the city limits surely will fail.

But members of county council, who represent individual districts, need to show real leadership and stand up to the those whose only interest lies within their district.

A bad decision was made years ago in Florence and Darlington to get rid of their original courthouses rather than follow the lead of other communities that found ways to restore and use their historic courthouses.

Let’s hope county council members realize the importance of keeping the courthouse downtown and working with the city to find the best place for it and for parking needs.

We think a recent opinion piece in The State newspaper by the president of the Historic Charleston Foundation and its director make some very important points about the role of the courthouse for a city and county.

Even though our old courthouse is gone, we think the main points they make about what went on when there were discussions of moving Charleston’s courthouse are valid for every community especially Florence:

“Historic Charleston Foundation staff and trustees, along with (Charleston) Mayor Joseph P. Riley Jr. and others, immediately responded, arguing that America is filled with cities whose downtown centers have become virtual ghost towns because they failed to recognize that their vitality relied on central shared spaces where the common bonds of law, culture and community link citizens to one another.
“Preservationists argued that designers of Charles Town’s Grand Modell in 1680 followed a tradition in city planning that owes its origin to Roman custom and Renaissance vision: that a common public space where civic institutions establish buildings in close proximity creates the critical gravity that defines a community.
“To achieve that, the county courthouse had to maintain the judicial function for which it was designed. Foundation representatives appeared time and again at County Council and Board of Architectural Review meetings, vigilant in their conviction that the courthouse’s presence, as a functioning courthouse, was critical to the downtown area’s character and economic and civic health.
“Restoring the courthouse and fitting an adjacent new judicial complex within that historic block was no easy task. Yet through perseverance, creativity and negotiation, Charleston has preserved an invaluable resource that so many other communities are seeking desperately to recreate.”

We can’t bring the old Florence courthouse back.

But for Florence to grow and help all of the county and the Pee Dee to prosper, keeping the courthouse downtown is vital.