I attended the candidate forum for Winnsboro town offices on March 21 at the Winnsboro Woman’s Club. Most candidates agreed that Winnsboro’s economic development niche would be in maximizing our historic treasures. Several voiced a vision of developing the art school in the Mount Zion school building.
An article in The State newspaper on March 22 gives insight into just what value can be gained by adaptive reuse of historic properties. On page A11, Seth Rose, a Richland County councilman, gives insight to two huge warehouses that everyone thought were of no value other than to be torn down. However, at the Old Confederate Printing Plant on Gervais Street, developers, preservationists and city leaders came together. And now in South Carolina, and probably the nation, the Publix grocery store is one of the best examples of adaptive reuse that has ever been seen. The grocery store alone did not revitalize the area, but what it did do was to spark the energy that brought other shops, renewed focus on other venues and opened up development.
The same thing can happen in Winnsboro with an internationally known artist and a state-of-the-art college being the spark to open up development in Fairfield County.
Let’s all pull together to make it happen.
Brenda Miller
Winnsboro