Mayor to Host Town Hall Meeting on Improving Marietta Square

Mayor Steve Tumlin will be among city officials hosting a town hall meeting Feb. 16 looking for ideas to make the Marietta Square a better place for locals, tourists, businesses and the non-profit theaters and museums in the downtown area.

Tumlin said he and the other hosts of the meeting, Downtown Marietta Development Authority Chairman Tom Browning and City Councilman Anthony Coleman, have no projects to announce. They will be there to listen to business owners, landlords, city residents and representatives of the non-profit groups that have struggled with funding during the economic downturn.

“There will be more ideas than money,” Tumlin said.

The town hall meeting is scheduled for 6:30 p.m. in the at Marietta Station, 129 Church St. The mayor said long-standing problems on the Square such as parking, traffic, noisy railroad crossings and street-side dumpsters are on the table as well as any other ideas people have to make downtown more attractive.

Tumlin stressed the need to find ways to help the non-profit theaters and museums on the Square, including , the , the , the and the .

“If we lose attractions, then we're just like other small towns in Georgia. You’ll see empty storefronts,” the mayor said.

The non-profits are all looking for money, but they’re all in different situations, said Johnny Fulmer, owner of the Church Street Market and a member of the DMDA. “They are important to the city, to tourism, to the restaurants on the Square,” Fulmer said. “We’ve got to figure out ways for them to survive.”

Fulmer hopes the Feb. 16 meeting “is not just a bunch of people bitching about parking. We need input.”

Tumlin agrees that the non-profits need help. “They bring people to the Square,” he said. Although the theaters and museums receive some public money, funding remains tight. “Three words,” the mayor said. “Fundraisers, fundraisers, fundraisers.”