Sweet Auburn Gets Historic Preservation Help

SWEET AUBURN — While the residential portion of this historic district enjoys its renaissance of revitalization, the commercial corridor at its heart, Auburn Avenue, continues to languish.

So much so, that in 2012, the National Trust for Historic Preservation listed the Sweet Auburn commercial district as one of the 11-most endangered places of cultural and historic significance in America.

The year before, the Grant Park-based Atlanta Preservation Center listed Sweet Auburn as one of 19 most endangered spots in the city.

But the National Trust Main Street Center, a private non-profit whose mission is to help save historic places, is working with local preservationists to revitalize the commercial corridor.

The NTMSC helped form a steering committee to map out its strategy, Teresa Lynch, a senior program officer with the organization, wrote this week in an update on the project.

That steering committee, which includes Atlanta City Councilman Kwanza Hall, Mtamanika Youngblood, president of the Historic District Development Corp., and Fulton County Commissioner Joan Garner, among others, already has incorporated a non-profit entity, Sweet Auburn Works.

The committee, Lynch wrote, is developing a fundraising plan, identifying possible board members and management staff.

The work follows a 64-page November 2012 assessment report that Lynch wrote on Sweet Auburn's commercial corridor and the work it needed. [For the full report, please click on the attatched PDF.]

"The assets that exist within the Sweet Auburn neighborhood are astounding in their breadth and scope," Lynch wrote in her report."The only thing missing at present is a plan to guide the stakeholders along the commercial revitalization path."

A return to historic vitality is not impossible, she wrote.

Washington, D.C.'s H Street, is similar to Auburn Avenue with the same arc of development, glory and then decline.

But H Street, which enjoys commercial success again, could serve as the blueprint for what Auburn Avenue can do and a representative of that district, made his own presentation to Sweet Auburn preservationists explaining what their D.C. counterparts did to kick-start the commercial renaissance.

"Sweet Auburn now has beginnings of a commercial revitalization plan in place, a Main Street organization established to implement the plan, the Trust’s commitment to provide continuing technical assistance and other resources to support the commercial district’s revival," Lynch wrote.

"I personally can’t wait to see what they accomplish in the next few years."