Toccoa Main Street Recertified as GEMS Community

Main Street Toccoa has once again been re-certified as a Georgia Exceptional Main Street (GEMS) community for 2018.

The Main Street Program is a downtown economic development program run by the National Trust for Historic Preservation.

In the State of Georgia, it is overseen by the Georgia Department of Community Affairs Office of Downtown Development.

To be certified as an official participating Main Street community, a city must follow a four-point approach to downtown development characterized by Organization, Design, Economic Restructuring, and Promotions.

Main Street Manager Christian Hamilton says Toccoa is one of a select number of Georgia municipalities on the GEMS list.

“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.”

GEMS designation is the highest designation awarded by the State of Georgia for participating Main Street cities.

Hamilton says to qualify as a GEMS community, a Main Street must participate in a lengthy accreditation process that evaluates the effectiveness and economic successes of that community over a large period of time.

“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 his office completed the accreditation process in December of last year, and since that time, have continued to work toward downtown development in Toccoa.

He said every year, the number of visitors to Toccoa’s downtown district increases, which demonstrates how popular Historic Downtown Toccoa has become.