Organization Says Downtown Macon Businesses are Thriving

MACON, Georgia (41NBC/WMGT) – Businesses in downtown Macon are seeing a lot of foot traffic, and that’s a good thing according to Main Street Macon.

Kevin Reaves says his coffee shop is one of a kind in Macon and in middle Georgia.

The Taste and See co-owner has had his doors open since the middle of August and he says customers are constantly coming to check things out.

“Downtown Macon didn’t have anything like this and we wanted to bring something totally different to downtown Macon,” Reaves said.

Taste and See is one of 12 new businesses in the area in the past year. Reaves says the efforts to improve downtown Macon attracted him to open up shop.

Main Street Macon held their annual meeting Monday to talk about the past fiscal year, and what things went right and wrong.

More and more business are starting to open their doors in downtown Macon and that’s because the revitalization efforts are working, Main Street Macon hopes that continues.

“I’ve got a prospect list of about 25 businesses that in some form or fashion are looking at downtown as a possibility to open a business. So we really got a lot of exciting things happening,” Mechel McKinley of Main Street Macon said.

Macon Mayor Robert Reichert thinks the goal of downtown is to be a hub city.

“A hub city is one with a vibrant urban core that offers opportunities that you don’t find to the same extent elsewhere within the region,” Reichert said.

Reichert says the city has worked to expand downtown, and hopes for more business growth in the near future.

“We have rotated it on a linear axis so it opens it up, and now we’re connecting the conference center on the other side of the river, to the government center to the business center, to the medical center, to the law enforcement center and with the new connector over to the student center at Mercer University,” Reichert said.