Improvements coming for downtown Celina after the town received a $100,000 Downtown Improvement Grant from the state.
Clay County Chamber of Commerce Director Doug Young said this is the fourth time Celina has received the grant. Young said it is fantastic to help improve the community.
“We’ve been able to spiffy up downtown some over the past, and hopefully this will allow our merchants downtown to get in on this and really improve even more,” Young said. “This is the largest downtown grant that we have been able to access.”
Young said Celina Vice-Mayor Mike Boles and the Upper Cumberland Development District will work with downtown business owners to determine what improvements will be made. Young said Celina’s downtown needs improvements because its history is unlike any other downtown in Tennessee.
“Our downtown was originally down on the river,” Young said. “And for the first 60 years, we didn’t have a bridge across the river in Celina, so the town was down on the river. But in 1928-1929, we got a bridge across that river finally, and that’s when the businesses started moving up to the end of the bridge. Now, at that very time, the depression hit in 1929, and these people building these buildings, unlike any other small towns, were not able to build buildings that cost a lot of money.”
Young said many of the buildings in what is currently downtown Celina have not been able to survive all these years. Young said the town is putting a focus on preserving the buildings that still exist downtown today.
Young said Celina’s downtown has deteriorated over the past several years and is definitely not what it used to be. Young said there used to be several businesses, including one he owned himself, that kept it vibrant. Young said the town hopes to restore downtown to the vibrant place it used to be.
“Now we’re just not big enough, we got a four-lane highway to Cookeville, and people want to head off to the big stores over there instead of shopping at home,” Young said. “But if they will shop at home and look around and see what we have before they head off to Cookeville, you know, it will be a great thing for our whole community. If we are gonna survive, we’re gonna have to work together and shop at home as much as we possibly can.”
Young said the grant does come with a 25 percent match. Young said the town will likely meet with the Development District in January to discuss next steps.
