MOULTRIE — “Welcome to Downtown Moultrie. Wrong Way! Do Not Enter!” Pratt Cassity said Sunday to a crowd at the courthouse annex. “Constantly, we’re confronted with ‘We don’t want you here.’”

Cassity, associate professor of public service and outreach at the University of Georgia College of Environment and Design, was pointing out the painfully obvious to a group of residents gathered to learn how to enhance the city as an extension of the Friedlander Building/ABAC project, now known as Project Connect. He was referring to signs denoting one-way streets that make up what he calls a “maze” downtown.

“It may be time to use a little political muscle and talk to your DOT folks and say let’s look at downtown again. We have a different downtown now than when these signs were put in ...,” he said. “Maybe these signs are going to stay, but have you ever tried to follow these signs?”

And for other travelers coming through, they might not even bother to try to find downtown, he said.

Moultrians became more acquainted with a new word this weekend: charrette. Cassity and his team of eight graduate students used the city as a laboratory of sorts and in return offered design ideas that if taken on would progressively change the face and function of the city. The students brought ideas from diverse backgrounds — North Carolina, Germany, China, Massachusetts, Illinois, Arkansas, Georgia. For them, it was a chance to put theory of how community issues overlap urban design into practice.

“Each community has its own kind of flavor — character. What we really enjoy is trying to get to know that energy and be able to express it through design solutions,” said graduate student Jennifer Walker, coordinator of the charrette.

Now the design team will go back to Athens to detail designs and will deliver its report to Moultrie in a couple of months.

This is Cassity’s 60th charrette, but you wouldn’t have guessed it by the enthusiasm demonstrated by the range of the team’s ideas.

Part of that steam might be from a U.S. Department of Agriculture Rural Business Opportunity Grant.

“That RBOG grant is not an easy thing to get,” Cassity said, noting that only a few are awarded nationally each year.

That grant packaged together with a National Endowment for the Arts plus the university’s match of soft services will provide about $150,000 in funds and soft services, Cassity said, that will be used for an ongoing redesign project with regional reach.

“This is the first start. This is the first stroke at getting greater connectivity, improve circulation,” he said.

The pending report will offer more details about Project Connect’s redevelopment plans, but prominent in the design team’s proposal is the demolition of the Insurance Services of the South building directly across from the chamber of commerce at First Avenue and Second Street Southeast. In its place, Cassity and his team proposed, would go a parking lot with strong vertical elements like support pillars and a dense pergola that would somewhat protect vehicles parking there. The rear of the Friedlander Building would be redesigned with gathering spots for students and lovely walkways approaching the rear.

The team also recommended the preservation of the old mule barn next door, noting its strong and coveted architectural design. It could be used for public bathrooms and serve as a venue for musical performances, he said. Cassity said the team was blown away about the barn’s potential.

Across the street, the municipal “building,” really a facade fronting a utility vehicle parking lot around a capped water well, might be redesigned, possibly for parking.

The team recommended the renovation or razing of the former Treasure Chest building behind the ABAC on the Square building and across from the Municipal Building.

“We were back there at night and saw some things going on there that may not be exactly what you want going on in your downtown,” he said.

Some of the old warehouses in Northeast Moultrie can be saved, others likely not, he said. For those that stay, Cassity suggested using investment tax credit to convert them into affordable housing, workforce housing, elderly housing, retail centers or multiple-use buildings.

“Do something in this area that’s going to bring people into it rather than just storage,” he said. “... Who knows? In 25 years, maybe a dormitory.”