By Natalie M. Zeigler
City Manager
When you’re talking about the growth of the City of Hartsville, the phrase “a good problem to have” often comes up.
This year, we are living through construction of downtown sidewalks and parking lots. More work is coming up, especially in the form of a newly paved surface for the notoriously bumpy East College Avenue. These projects can get in our way and can displace our parking spots, certainly. Still, it’s easy to see these issues as good problems to have, since parking will soon be better than ever. We’re investing in our future development, not watching our infrastructure crumble. Wherever people are talking about parking availability, you can be sure you’ve found a city where people want to be.
This fall, downtown street events are closing off our roads on several occasions, but again, that is a great problem to have. Hartsville has come to be the home of several street festivals showing off our community pride, our local businesses and artists, and really just giving residents and visitors alike more reasons to stay here.
Many local residents have come out the second Saturday of the month this year to the Hartsville Farmers Market on East Carolina Avenue. We still have several more of those to go this year – Oct. 10, Nov. 14 and Dec. 12 – but as with every fall, we’ve now got a great deal more than just that happening.
Last week, downtown development organization Main Street Hartsville brought back the ever-popular Downtown Block Party series. The first of these concerts, featuring the band Outshyne, a true rising star out of South Carolina, lured in what was likely the biggest crowd the event has ever seen. The fall series still has two more dates, including a concert led by longtime Hartsville artist Dylan Sneed on East Carolina Avenue, scheduled for 6 p.m. on Thursday, Sept. 24, and another from hometown band Skymonk on Railroad Avenue, 6 p.m. on Oct. 8.
A grand finale of sorts will arrive two weeks later on Saturday, Oct. 24 from 5 to 10 p.m.: The Duke Energy Lights Up the Night community festival. The event, the fulfillment of a longstanding effort to bring a major fall festival to Hartsville, will include vendors, food, truck displays and a concert by beach music lovers Terence Lonon and the Untouchables to Railroad Avenue and Coker Avenue. The event’s centerpiece, however, is coming to the DeLoach Center in the form of an hourly indoor laser show.
There’s more still beyond all of that – Frets & Necks Fest, happening all day on Oct. 17, bringing artists and live music into West Carolina Avenue shops, and of course Treats on the Streets downtown trick-or-treating beginning at 4:30 p.m. on Oct. 29. More and more these days, street events are seen as one of the hallmarks of an engaging and vivacious community. Hartsville’s calendar over the next couple of months shows that we aren’t lacking for any of these qualities.
Natalie Zeigler is the City Manager of Hartsville. For more information, call City Hall at 843-383-3015 or email info2@hartsvillesc.gov.