A little more than a year ago, the Knight Foundation sponsored a group of students on a trip to meet Richard Florida of the Creative Class Group in Washington, DC to learn how they could spur the revival of downtown Macon. Florida’s work “focuses on diversity and creativity as basic drivers of innovation and regional and national growth.” These students discovered that Macon was well positioned to recruit and grow creative service industries such as graphic design, marketing, and the arts by retaining talented young people graduating from the city’s academic institutions. Inspired by this visit, the group of Mercer University students dreamed a plan to spur this growth by reconnecting Mercer University and downtown Macon (download the Students’ Plan from the Studies section of our Gallery.).
Mercer University President Bill Underwood and Mayor C. Jack Ellis formed the College Hill Corridor Commission to accomplish the primary goal of creating an attractive, safe and well defined corridor connecting Mercer University and downtown.
Read more about the Commission and our work in our 2007-2008 Annual Report.