Dear Editor,
In response to articles highlighting renovations at our downtown courthouse, I hope to add some additional perspective. Greensboro is not the first historic downtown to grapple with the issue of a county facing changing law enforcement challenges, growth, and their impacts on downtown.
I came from a historic downtown not too far from here, where I was the owner and proprietor of the oldest property in the city, a 5,000-square-foot building built as the first hotel. It was started in 1823 and finished in 1826, was on the National Register, and was just a three-minute walk to the historic courthouse. The city is the county seat.
The challenge for old courthouses is ensuring security for judges, court personnel, attorneys, police and prisoners, witnesses, and concerned others in facilities that eventually outgrow their space capacity or don’t have safe pathways that are secured or will not meet the security requirements in the future.
Meeting spaces for attorneys and their clients getting ready for trial need privacy and security, but old buildings often have a very small chance they can be modified without a complete overhaul that impacts their historic design. Transporting prisoners any distance creates additional challenges. All the concerns of the impact on the downtown and its businesses – all valid – are manageable.
Ask the city of McDonough. In the near future, Henry County plans to build a state-of-the-art judicial center close to the jail, impacting who or what will occupy the old courthouse space. The reaction to the initial news: “What happens to downtown merchants if and when this occurs?” On the upside, parking spaces previously occupied by court visitors will free up and make space for visitors.
Instead of worrying about what happens when courtgoers are absent, the city (of McDonough), its business community, Main Street and Tourism, got busy. The restaurant community grew to more than twice its original size, there were more events downtown, more visitors, and more offerings with outdoor seating space and a bar area, retail shopping, axe throwing, coffee drinking, tavern, bookstore, ice cream, downtown living and yes, even a cigar shop in an old historic bank have been birthed – a place where people gather from all over for a great time. Artists paint, ghost tours happen, and all of it can be replicated in historic downtown.
History lives if done right. Re-purposing historic buildings can give them new life and can cement them in both the past and future. The county (Greene) has committed to keeping the historic building. Although it may have to change its purpose – and I believe it can be done – it would still add to a thriving downtown.
Annette Westcott, Greensboro