The Sportsman Restaurant, the one-story building in this photo of First Avenue Southeast, closed in December 2003 and has fallen into severe disrepair. Plans are to demolish the building and replace it with a small park.

Editor’s note: This article has been corrected from its original version.

Editor’s note: This is one in a series of articles reflecting on positive change in Moultrie and Colquitt County in 2017. See the column at left for links to other stories in the series.

MOULTRIE, Ga. — Work had been going on behind the scenes for almost two years when Downtown Moultrie Tomorrow broke ground on a “pocket park” in January 2017.

The park was the first of several projects that DMT’s Enhancement Committee proposed to improve Moultrie’s downtown area. Officials initially said they hoped it would be finished by the end of April, but it was actually August when a ribbon cutting was held.

The park occupies the corner of First Street and Second Avenue Southeast. The land was donated by Southwest Georgia Bank, whose president, DeWitt Drew, was a leader in getting the redevelopment project off the ground.

“The bank owned this lot for about 30 years before somebody had a good idea what to do with it,” Drew said during the dedication of the park.

The bank donated the land to Downtown Moultrie Tomorrow, and various individuals and businesses provided the money to turn the vacant lot into a park. After construction was finished, DMT donated the park to the city, which will maintain it.

The park features green space, two tables with umbrellas, and flower beds enclosed in red brick. It’s lined with brick pavers consistent with the streetscape throughout other parts of downtown.

Next door to the park, Southwest Georgia Bank has redesigned its parking lot to complement the new greenspace.

Even as DMT celebrated the pocket park’s opening, plans were being finalized for the second project on the list. Moultrie City Manager Pete Dillard said a groundbreaking is planned for early January 2018 for the re-construction of a parking lot owned by the county on Second Street Southeast, across Central Avenue from the Colquitt County Courthouse Annex.

“It’s going to be more park than parking lot,” Dillard said.

The city is doing the engineering on the project, he said, and one of the city’s goals with it is to remove overhead utility lines and put them underground.

Other projects in the redevelopment are moving along too, he said.

The money is now available to tear down the old Sportsman Restaurant. Once an iconic gathering place on First Street Southeast, the building deteriorated badly after the restaurant closed in December 2003.

“The Sportsman had no side walls,” Dillard said. “Its side walls were the buildings next to it.”

Other comments that have come out over the last year describe water flowing out the restaurant’s door when it rains.

Another pocket park is planned for that site, and it will lead into a city-owned parking lot on Second Avenue Southeast. That parking lot is another project in the DMT’s redevelopment plan, according to David Herndon, chairman of DMT’s Enhancement Committee.

“That’s going to be the most complex project, and it’s going to take a little longer, but we’re working on it,” Herndon said in January.

The redevelopment plan also calls for a welcome center to be located in downtown Moultrie. Dillard said DMT has been in negotiations to purchase the former CitiTrends building on Main Street at Central Avenue, but those talks have been complicated.

The building’s owners, a husband and wife, died without a will, Dillard said. Every heir has agreed to sell the building, he said, but they don’t currently have anyone with legal authority to sign the paperwork.

When that’s settled and the deal does come together, he said, DMT will renovate the building and is expected to donate it to the city to house the Main Street Department, an office for the UGA Small Business Development Center, public restrooms and space for Colquitt Regional Medical Center to have a downtown presence. Dillard said the hospital will probably use its space to offer information and brochures, but it might sometimes put on a health fair there.

The final part of the redevelopment project involves buying and installing security cameras in nine blocks of downtown. Officials have said the cameras will make visitors to the heart of the city safer, and thus encourage more people to come downtown.

Officials are seeking grants that will help pay for the cameras.