Church revives downtown landmark
By CHRIS HORNE - chorne@macon.com
Photo by Beau Cabell
For the first time in its history, the old building at 533 Cherry St. is about to be the home of something besides R.S. Thorpe & Sons, a men’s clothier that set up shop there in 1929.
In mid-June, it’s set to reopen as the 567 Center for Renewal, a multipurpose facility catering to local music, the arts and entrepreneurship. The center will be operated by New City Church.
”I think it’s really important for Cherry Street for New City Church to buy and renovate such an historic building,” said Mike Ford, president of NewTown Macon, an organization that works for the revitalization of downtown Macon.
Thorpe’s, as the clothier was better known around town, was established in Macon in 1908. For nearly 85 years, men all over Middle Georgia bought their suits at Thorpe’s, a mainstay of downtown retail. R.S. Thorpe even operated another branch in Lexington, Ky.
All told, the business survived the Great Depression, the physical collapse of its original location and even a fire in 1939, but it couldn’t survive the sprawl that swept shoppers out into suburbs, turning the city’s urban core into a virtual ghost town.
In 1992, Thorpe’s closed.
For the next 17 years, the building remained vacant, gathering cobwebs and dust. The facade deteriorated, and the rusty iron frame of the former awning became another downtown eyesore.
But better days were ahead.
Out with the old
The first step back to life for the Thorpe building came when the Facade Squad, a local nonprofit dedicated to improving deteriorated facades, used a $15,000 grant from the Community Foundation of Central Georgia to repair the building’s front.
Keith Watson, pastor of the New City Church, said the first time he was able to take a good look at the building was when the Facade Squad was making repairs.
Ultimately, that trip inside led Watson and his congregation to where they are now, writing the opening lines of a new chapter for the building.
While the church, which currently meets at the Cox Capitol Theatre on Sundays, will gather at the 567 Center for worship services, Watson says the center will operate as a separate entity. It will focus on arts and culture for the entire city, especially downtown.
Historic Macon Executive Director Josh Rogers, who serves on the board of the Facade Squad and worked on the Thorpe building’s facade renovation, said he’s happy to see the 567 Center move in.
“We never imagined, in our wildest dreams, (the renovated facade) would bring in such a big investment,” he said. “We just hoped it’d look better.”
Facade Squad Director Shae Hinson said he thinks the 567 Center will have a catalytic impact on both historic preservation downtown and cultural activity.
“What we did is very little compared to what is going to be going on downtown,” he said.
A fresh start
The 567 Center for Renewal is named after the little storefront at 567 Cherry St. where Watson transformed his office into the 567 Cafe.
At the cafe, spoken word poetry and singer-songwriter nights merged seamlessly in the small venue with art openings, rock shows and hip-hop concerts — nary a Bible in sight — to form an early version of the sort of arts and cultural events they want to do in the center.
The 567 Center is a bigger, more-thought-out update of the 567 Cafe vision, which is to reach out to the creative culture that has formed around downtown without beating people over the head with the tenets of the church’s faith.
“We believe God is a creative God, and he created humanity in his image so humanity is also creative,” Watson said. “What are some of the most beautiful things about life on Earth? I think it’s the arts.”
When he looks back through the story of Jesus, Watson said the people Jesus “beat up on were the Pharisees and the hypocrites. The rest of the world he just hung out with and got along with.” So the open-armed welcome New City gives to Macon’s creative community is, Watson said, an effort to be more like Jesus.
As such, the 567 Center — about 11,000 square feet spread out over two stories — will have a venue for live music downstairs that seats 300 and a recording studio upstairs. In time, it will have the ability to video live shows. Watson said he plans the venue to have the ability to record audio from a live show and burn it immediately to a CD as a post-concert souvenir.
The center also will do its part to help another group of creative people grow downtown: small-business owners.
Watson said the center is being outfitted for a “business incubator,” a group of affordable office spaces with shared access to Internet, phone lines, a copier, fax machine and a conference room, all intended to help entrepreneurs get started without breaking their bank.
A downtown hub
As a little girl, Wimberly Treadwell spent every Christmas working the gift-wrapping station at Thorpe’s. Her great-grandfather was R.S. Thorpe, so working there was a family affair.
It had its perks, too. Every year as the Christmas parade packed the streets of downtown, Treadwell said she had the perfect seat, looking out over Cherry Street from the second floor.
Now that she’s an architect responsible for the CityScapes program, which has cleaned up downtown’s alleys and dressed up its sidewalks, Treadwell has watched the slow decline of the Thorpe building.
“It was so troubling to just see it sitting there empty,” Treadwell said. “It was such a hub downtown for so long.”
Seeing new life breathed into the building, Treadwell said she couldn’t be more excited.
“(Watson’s) so great for downtown,” she said. “I think the 567 Center is a great idea.”
Sean Pritchard is a local music promoter who has put together about 25 shows at the 567 Cafe, most recently in conjunction with The Blue Indian, the Macon-based indie music blog.
Initially concerned about working with a venue connected with a church, Pritchard said he’s been pleasantly surprised by Watson’s openness to art and music. That openness has created the opportunity for new connections among Macon’s artists.
“They just don’t want an empty building sitting there on a Friday night,” Pritchard said.
“The best part about working with (Watson) and the 567 is they know a lot of people, and those people are interested in working together. A lot of informal networking has been happening.”
Working with the blog’s founder, Luke Goddard, Pritchard has brought a national indie music sensation, Washed Out, to the cozy confines of the cafe, drawing fans from Athens, Atlanta and Savannah.
With the bigger space and improved sound system, Pritchard thinks he’ll be able to put on better shows with larger crowds. That, he said, will have a trickle-down effect on downtown businesses.
“(The crowds) are going to want to go somewhere to eat, and they’re going to want somewhere to shop,” he said.
Goddard agrees, seeing it as a perfect fit for the creative and the business sides of downtown.
“For the music side of Macon, I think it’s going to be huge,” he said.
For Watson, the doors can’t open soon enough.
“We’re in a city we really love and care about, and being in this building keeps us in the middle of the arts and entertainment district where new business is coming in,” he said. “This helps us be a part of seeing all that continue.”
Information from Telegraph archives was used in this report. To contact writer Chris Horne, call 744-4494.
Read more: http://www.macon.com/2010/05/15/1128947/church-revives-downtown-landmark.html#ixzz0nznO38Vz
