Public encouraged to participate in charrette on arts district

Mitch Talley, Whitfield County director of communications

Charrette: (shuh-RET). Noun 1. A final intense effort to complete a design project. 2. A preliminary meeting involving stakeholders (citizens, planners, designers, etc.) to brainstorm or to elicit input on a project.

Imagine a day when a family could drive to downtown Dalton and pull into the county parking deck, stroll amongst shops and restaurants downtown on the way to a trolley stop at Little Five Points, and end up at an arts and cultural district in the Crown Mill area, where they could, for example, listen to musicians at an amphitheater, take a pottery class, relax at a park surrounded by century-old oak trees or visit the historic Hamilton House and Crown Archives.

The first stage toward making that dream a reality will arrive this Saturday when the Dalton-Whitfield Planning Office will host a charrette to get public input on a proposed Arts & Cultural Overlay District that will be unveiled from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the newly renovated Freight Depot at the intersection of Cuyler and South Depot streets downtown.

“Our interns from the Archway Partnership have created three different concept designs for the Crown Mill area,” city/county planner Kevin Herrit said. “We are looking for input from the public about what they like and don’t like about the designs so that we can then come up with one overall design to be presented later to the Dalton City Council.”

University of Georgia interns Casey Marbutt, of Eatonton, and Cameron Yates, of Warm Springs, and Savannah College of Art and Design architecture graduate James Stephenson are excited about spending the summer working on projects that have the support of the local government, and vice versa.

Says Dalton City Administrator Ty Ross of the interns, “Their perspective is important because the council wants this city to be more attractive for young people, so they want young people to tell us how to make it more attractive. We want to know what they think about our ideas.”

The purpose of the district is to sustain established uses and to promote new arts and cultural uses, including a limited number of small-scale (up to 4,000 square feet) live entertainment venues in neighborhood or mixed use areas that are compatible with the character of nearby residential neighborhoods.

The district seeks a balance of daytime and nighttime uses and a ratio of approximately 20 percent cocktail lounges and 80 percent other uses, including art galleries, coffee shops, restaurants, museums and theaters up to 6,000 square feet.

The district would include lots facing North Hamilton Street and Chattanooga Avenue between Springfield Road and West Tyler Street and Chenille Drive and West Tyler Street.

Herrit encourages as many people as possible to attend the charrette “because the city wants to see if the community will buy into” the proposal.

“We’ve come up with several different ideas,” Herrit said, “but they may not be at all what the residents want to see in that area. That’s what the charrette is for. We want them to be able to come in and say, ‘Oh, I really like that idea, but hey, have you thought about this?’ That way before this gets out there and put in place, they have the ability to put their thoughts on paper. Then we can incorporate some of their ideas into what we’re doing so that it truly is for them and it’s not just something I sat in an office and created and nobody ever had any input on it. We want their input because we want it to be created for and used by them, them being the citizens.”

Herrit says the already strong historic nature of the area makes it easier to come up with an authentic arts district “because we already have an area with character that we can build off of and enhance with these ideas.”

He pointed out the historic Crown Mill that has already been renovated into loft apartments, as well as the 170-year-old Hamilton House and the 126-year-old Crown Archive that are being renovated and the old Crown Mill Store that the city plans to renovate.

“With the historical importance of all that, the city is trying to find a way to take all the history and keep it alive, plus build up an area of arts and culture,” Herrit said. “Private industry has started redeveloping the Crown Mill area and the city would like to be a part of the catalyst that propels interest and redevelopment there.”

The charrette is a “great way for all of us to plug into new and exciting changes that could take place in our great city,” he said. “We will have concept designs for everyone to look at and help give input to what kind of amenities this area should have and how it should be guided to help anchor our community in a bold new redevelopment phase. Please come out and participate and bring your new and exciting ideas for Dalton.”

Herrit said the designs to be unveiled this weekend are just concepts now. “For example, we haven’t gone into putting in costs to find out exactly how much it’s going to cost to purchase a trolley, how much it would cost to build out the line, and what all we would need. But that will be the next phase once we get the public’s input on whether they like the idea or not. We don’t want to go any further until the public says that they like the idea of the district or they give us their interpretation of what they’d like the Crown Mill area to turn into.”

The Archway Partnership is an outreach program of the University of Georgia that sends the college’s resources into communities throughout the state to improve land-use planning and work force housing and address the needs of the growing Latino population. It began as a two-year pilot program in 2005 but has since expanded to serve eight counties.

Local News

Search Results

Discussion

Site Map

Contact Us