Toccoa Named GEMS Community Once Again

The City of Toccoa is once again a GEMS Community.

On Monday, Community Development Specialist Christian Hamilton announced Toccoa has been re-certified as a Georgia Exceptional Main Street (GEMS) community for 2017.

Hamilton said that puts Toccoa among a select group of Georgia municipalities.

“There are only 16 GEMS communities in the state of Georgia, and there were only eight a year ago and Toccoa was one of the first eight,” said Hamilton. “They choose eight at a time and they just recently chose eight more. We’re very proud of that. We’ve done a lot in our downtown and the re-certification here just goes to show the City of Toccoa’s continued support for downtown development.”

Collectively, GEMS communities, including Toccoa, represent 473,200 Georgia citizens and eight service delivery regions.

Hamilton said in order to achieve a GEMS designation, Main Street programs must meet certain high standards.

But he said it also means GEMS communities like Toccoa receive certain benefits.

“It’s a strenuous process to be a GEMS community. You get special perks, we get discounted pricing on things like training and design services and we also get one-on-one technical services and scholarship opportunities,” said Hamilton. “It’s very helpful for all the training we do. They give us quite a discount as opposed to some of the other cities. Really it just goes to show that Toccoa is an exceptional town.”

Hamilton said Toccoa’s re-certification proves the value the City places in downtown development, planning and its Main Street program.