College Hill Alliance fades, but volunteer commission set to continue

After six years of grant-fueled efforts to improve and bring identity to a two-square-mile corridor between Mercer University and downtown Macon, the College Hill Alliance will close its doors in December, and its objectives will come under a volunteer commission.

The alliance, a collaborative of Mercer University and Macon-Bibb County, was funded with two grants from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. It has been responsible for creating events such as the Second Sunday concerts in Washington Park and the Soap Box Derby. Downtown icons such as the big 'M' statue and the sculptures of circles rolling down Coleman Hill were erected as part of the College Hill master plan.

The alliance's accomplishments will be celebrated at the Tattnall Square Center for the Arts on Dec. 9, where 15 newly appointed members of the reconstituted College Hill Corridor Commission will be introduced.

"I don't look at it as the sun setting of the College Hill Alliance. I really look at it ... as the dawning of a new day for Macon," said Beverly Blake, the Knight Foundation's Macon program director. "I'm really excited that the engagement and the momentum will continue with the volunteer leadership of the commission."

The College Hill Corridor Commission was created in 2007 with the aim of forging an attractive, safe and well-defined corridor connecting downtown with the university.

"It was a place that had beautiful bones and a beautiful structure, but no identity," Blake said of the College Hill Corridor before 2009. "It needed to be neighborhood and all those things that come with a neighborhood, (such as) knowing your neighbors and doing things together."

A plan was developed in 2008, with a $250,000 grant from the Knight Foundation, to make the corridor an urban and pedestrian-friendly place to live, work and play. The College Hill Alliance was created a year later to carry out the plan with a $2 million grant to Mercer University from the Knight Foundation.

"From the very beginning, (the alliance) was meant to have a finite life," Blake said. "It was meant to get things started, to bring people together."

Also in 2009, the Knight Foundation launched the Knight Neighborhood Challenge with a $3 million grant to the Community Foundation of Central Georgia. The five-year challenge underwrote the best ideas to transform the corridor into a vibrant place in accordance with the master plan.

The big 'M' statue near Navicent Health on Forsyth Street, the giant slide on Coleman Hill, the splash pad at Daisy Park and ongoing improvements to Washington Park are a few of the 130 projects that have resulted from the Knight Neighborhood Challenge.

"It got people saying, 'You know what, I can do this. And if we don't own the change and lead the change, it's not going to happen,'" Blake said. "All (any) of us needed was inspiration that we could make change happen."

After a second grant of $2.3 million to Mercer University from the Knight Foundation in 2012, the life of the alliance was extended by three years so more of the master plan could be completed.

"The short way to summarize College Hill Alliance is mission accomplished," said Larry Brumley, senior vice president for Mercer University's marketing communications. "Now is the time to phase out the alliance (now that) 90 plus percent of the master plan has been accomplished. ... College Hill is transitioning by design."

A number of events that the alliance started have been handed off to other entities to sustain, and "that was the intention all along," Brumley said.

Second Sunday concerts in Washington Park are now organized by Bragg Jam; the Magnolia Street Soap Box Derby is now organized by the neighborhood's association; and Big Screen on the Green, an outdoor movie event, is now organized by the Macon-Bibb County Parks and Recreation Department.

Josh Rogers, president and chief executive officer of the downtown booster NewTown Macon, is a former director of the College Hill Corridor Commission. He said he thinks downtown will move swiftly into "inheriting the best lessons of College Hill."

"I think (the College Hill Alliance) has had an indelible impact on Macon's identity and confidence," Rogers said. "The project changed the way we think and our boldness to act, (and) I have no worries that we will lose momentum.

"There is simply too much work left to do, and so many people have been inspired to get to work."

To contact writer Laura Corley, call 744-4334. or follow her on Twitternote>

This story was originally published November 1, 2015 at 10:43 PM with the headline "College Hill Alliance fades, but volunteer commission set to continue ."