Metro Jacksonville

Elements of Urbanism: Augusta

(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/photos/1743955972_CGSszjZ-M.jpg)

Metro Jacksonville visits the urban core of Georgia's second largest metropolitan area: Augusta.

Full Article
http://www.metrojacksonville.com/article/2012-mar-elements-of-urbanism-augusta

Augusta is like Jax in that it has tremendous potential, and some great old buildings that (for the most part) are under-utilized.

Augusta should concentrate on Broad Street as it could an amazing showplace, if done correctly.  I would do everything possible to fill the vacant buildings, while going overboard to beautify the public realm. It would take time and money but it could be SO beautiful and unique that it would be on par with anything in New Orleans (sort of like a cross between Canal Street, Bourbon Street and Garden District) or Savannah, Charleston or anywhere else for that matter. 

The city is trying hard, but it is a smaller city and often doesn't get the details right.  Two examples would be the pink condo building (tallest building in the city) and the Darth Vader penthouse on the Lamar building.  They both stand out in a negative way.

Also, like Jax, Augusta's efforts are spread over a pretty vast area, which dilutes the progress. 

I have visited the city over a 10+ year period and seen some real progress, but there is still a lot to do.

Augusta is a nice place.  I did a triathlon there 3 years ago - swam in the river (that part wasn't so nice), most of the bike course was across the river in South Carolina, and the run was multiple laps up and down Broad Street and the historic residential district.  What impressed me most was the hospitality.  The locals really went out of their way to support the event.  It was fun.

Yes, downtown Augusta strikes me as a place with a ton of potential.  Like Jax, they've demolished a lot of their original building fabric.  However, it appears some sort of effort was made to limit demolitions on Broad Street.  Btw, in recent years, they've been considering a streetcar system that would connect downtown to the medical district.

(http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/augusta-streetcar.png)

http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/2009/04/22/augusta-readies-streetcar-proposal/

How romantic.

In reality this place, especially downtown is an abandoned dump.
Sure, there are pockets of activity but as walk-able as this area is, everyone still drives. Even down the road to get lunch

You left out the part about the signal-less railroad crossings. Anytime the train comes thru they have to lay on the horn. Makes business in the buildings impossible to conduct.

Didnt take much of a suburb to get people to leave the area too. The area is still prone to flooding and despite the small population does have a homeless situation similar to jax.

There are a few cool modernly renovated apartments downtown, and very affordable. If you can find a job.

Quote from: Gravity on March 22, 2012, 10:45:31 AM
How romantic.

In reality this place, especially downtown is an abandoned dump.
Sure, there are pockets of activity but as walk-able as this area is, everyone still drives. Even down the road to get lunch

You left out the part about the signal-less railroad crossings. Anytime the train comes thru they have to lay on the horn. Makes business in the buildings impossible to conduct.

Didnt take much of a suburb to get people to leave the area too. The area is still prone to flooding and despite the small population does have a homeless situation similar to jax.

There are a few cool modernly renovated apartments downtown, and very affordable. If you can find a job.

I've never been, so I can't really comment. All I can add is: the pictures look great, looks like a cute, small town. That being said, out of the four people I know who've been there more than once, all four say the same thing: it's a dump.

Are they referring specifically to downtown Augusta or the entire city as a whole?  It's not Winter Park or Greenville but its no Flint or Youngstown either.

Every Downtown that sparkles today, was a dump within the  last 20 years or so.   The 'bones' of the urban fabric are still there in Augusta.  Sure it would happen faster if the city were larger, but towns a fraction of it's size have already pulled it off.   

Augusta's an interesting place from a photographic perspective.  You captured it very well, and much better than I could, as usual.

I, too, have heard that Augusta is a dump.  I drove through so long ago I barely remember, but it's not known for much outside the Masters and now the only nuclear expansion in the country in decades.

Still, these pictures do look nice - it looks like it has really good bones.  It's not a growing city.  If you were raised in Augusta, you most likely left to live in Atlanta as soon as you were 18, or another big city in another state.

Georgia does have a lot of gems, though.  Decatur, Athens and Columbus are all pretty impressive cities.  Augusta doesn't look non-impressive, but I don't think it has any nice areas, and the people there are pretty slow-paced and content with the way things are, and there is nothing progressive about the place.

Augusta has a Streetcar plan in place...

BUT

Augusta razed the magnificent old Union Station... We didn't, THANK GOD!

So who's ahead?

Quote from: simms3 on March 22, 2012, 09:38:29 PM
Georgia does have a lot of gems, though.  Decatur, Athens and Columbus are all pretty impressive cities.  Augusta doesn't look non-impressive, but I don't think it has any nice areas, and the people there are pretty slow-paced and content with the way things are, and there is nothing progressive about the place.

I'll be in Atlanta this weekend.  Decatur is one of my scheduled photo stops.

Decatur isn't a city in the same way Athens and Columbus are- its an inner ring streetcar suburb, kind of like Avondale or San Marco only an independent municipality and a bit further out (6 miles as opposed to 1 or 2).

Quote from: lewyn on March 26, 2012, 04:11:53 PM
Decatur isn't a city in the same way Athens and Columbus are- its an inner ring streetcar suburb, kind of like Avondale or San Marco only an independent municipality and a bit further out (6 miles as opposed to 1 or 2).

Is that the same for DeKalb?

Quote from: ben says on March 26, 2012, 04:15:13 PM

Quote from: lewyn on March 26, 2012, 04:11:53 PM
Decatur isn't a city in the same way Athens and Columbus are- its an inner ring streetcar suburb, kind of like Avondale or San Marco only an independent municipality and a bit further out (6 miles as opposed to 1 or 2).

Is that the same for DeKalb?

Decatur is in DeKalb County.

I have good friends who are currently in Augusta for work. We visited them up there a while back. I didn't think it was so bad at all. While it they do sometimes have the appearance of revitalization projects that were abandonded halfway through, downtown and the historic neighborhoods have some pretty impressive architecture. There is an entire former Confederate powderworks facility that we just stumbled upon randomly, one of my favorite memories ever.

Downtown in particular has some pretty cool venues that seem to be fairly well supported; during our visit we had some specialty enchiladas and beers, checked out a ceramicist's studio, and caught a hockey game. The wider area has some other interesting features, such as the pleasant little burgh of Aiken, South Carolina.

Decatur (founded in 1822) is a city that has been long gobbled up by the growth of Atlanta.  it would be similar to Murray Hill, which was once a separate city five or six miles outside of downtown Jacksonville.  It's the county seat of DeKalb County.

I spent a few hours there yesterday.  It's a nice community with a decent downtown atmopshere and direct access with the rest of Atlanta via MARTA.

Quote from: Tacachale on March 26, 2012, 04:38:24 PM
I have good friends who are currently in Augusta for work. We visited them up there a while back. I didn't think it was so bad at all. While it they do sometimes have the appearance of revitalization projects that were abandonded halfway through, downtown and the historic neighborhoods have some pretty impressive architecture. There is an entire former Confederate powderworks facility that we just stumbled upon randomly, one of my favorite memories ever.

I'm an industrial architecture buff.  Here are a few pics of the old Confederate powderworks site.

(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Learning-From/Augusta/i-F7tqvJx/0/M/P1530623-M.jpg)

(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Learning-From/Augusta/i-ZW2pp43/0/M/P1530633-M.jpg)

(http://photos.metrojacksonville.com/Learning-From/Augusta/i-gRdQQ2n/0/M/P1530637-M.jpg)

Quote
The wider area has some other interesting features, such as the pleasant little burgh of Aiken, South Carolina.

Aiken is very nice.  Their DT is completely revitilized and is very attractive. Definitely worth the short trip from Augusta.

Visited Augusta a number of years ago. A family thing.  What we did when we were there was take a boat ride on the canal. The boats were non motorized and operated off batteries. That part of the canal was restricted. Kayaks were allowed. Trolling motors were OK.

I believe we went by the old Confederate powderworks site in the boat. The canal is behind the building. It was fun.

Aiken's #1 advantage is a significant population of uber-wealthy horse people.  They allow a town with 20,000 people to have some of the dining, shopping, and entertainment options of a city several times its size.  The downside is that they drive up costs (particularly housing) for the rest of the area's residents, who don't have a ton of employment options other than the Savannah River Site and an Owens Corning plant.

Augusta's downtown has definitely seen better (and worse) days.  I'd hate to think what the city would look like without the medical college.  The Riverwalk opening 20+ years ago was huge.  Before that, there was almost no reason to go downtown save for the occasional concert or court appearance.  The growth in neighboring Columbia County has been remarkable, similar to northern St. Johns County, FL or Shelby County, AL.

Of course, Augusta will once again be the center of the sporting world in 8 days, especially since Tiger is back.  8)

This tour of Augusta was much better and much more representative of the urban core than the very first one that was done here on MJ.

As others have said, the urban core has great bones and there's a ton of potential. There are quite a bit of historic structures downtown given its age, especially churches. I happen to like the quirky and somewhat eclectic nature of Broad Street and surrounding areas; in that sense, it gives you the flavor of districts like Little Five Points in Atlanta, San Marco in Jacksonville, NoDa in Charlotte, Five Points in Columbia, etc. within the urban core itself. Because Augusta isn't really a business center, it doesn't have a main street dominated by office uses which is why it has retained a good bit of its historic urban stock (and a lot of what was lost wasn't just via demolition, but due to the great fire of the early 20th century). There have been some new civic buildings erected recently as well, including the new library:

(http://farm7.staticflickr.com/6034/5878417286_4136b09101.jpg)

and new county judicial center:

(http://www.riccigreene.com/content/project_images/105/normal_731-Augusta-Richmond_Photo_Ext_View-1.jpg)

One of the biggest barriers to overall downtown cohesion that exists currently is the levee that separate the Riverwalk from the rest of downtown. That's why you've got those high walls that serve as entrances to the Riverwalk in certain sections:

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-kYO4SC5obvQ/Tfa7Z3Bw_QI/AAAAAAAAAeg/09lRqjvsUqg/s1600/Elevation+128+Feet.jpg)

As far as the "dump" comment goes, Augusta does have its fair share of blight (http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1366705) in areas close to the urban core, but some of that is getting cleaned up via the revitalization of the historically African American  Laney Walker and Bethlehem (http://www.laneywalkerbethlehem.com/) neighborhoods.

I did a photo tour of downtown last year if anyone wants to check it out: http://www.flickr.com/photos/30101980@N06/sets/72157627076827630/

^Great photos.  I really enjoyed them.  If you have photos of other cities you've taken, I'd like to feature them in future articles.

Thanks man. So far, I've got shots of Columbia, Jacksonville, DC, and Philly. Rome, GA for a smaller city.

Nice pics. krazeeboi how would you like to kayak in Downtown Jax? I've got a two seater and you can sit in the front and if we catch the tides right we can go under the TU on McCoys. Under the Hyatt Parking lot and the Plaza at Berkman. I don't think anyone has posted pics of that yet and you can catch Khans yacht. We can continue on past Shipyards/Landmar and the pier. You can capture pics from the water of the super dredge of Hogans Creek. And we can finish or even start at the Jacksonville Marina and put the kayak in at the brand new no fishing signs that were never before Waterways.

I was looking at your pics and maybe I missed it but do they still have that attraction in Augusta where you can ride the boat in the canal? 

I think you can still do boat tours of the Augusta Canal, but I'm not completely sure.