City of Starkville looks at keeping downtown historic

STARKVILLE, Miss. (WCBI) – There is a certain kind of charm about a small town.

That’s why the City of Starkville is looking at new ways to up their style.

The Board of Aldermen in Starkville has set a vote on a contract that will support their local businesses and help maintain historical buildings.

A partnership with the people at the Carl Small Town Center and money from the state could help downtown Starkville protect their historic buildings.

“To put together a design guidelines for downtown Starkville and they would not be any type of regulatory document. Something suggestive to a person that is buying a building or going into a building for their store of how to appropriately renovate the building in a historical fashion,” said Buddy Sanders.

They hope that store owners will take suggestions while still staying true to themselves.

“To protect the character of downtown. To give someone an idea of how to keep their store while maintaining their brand also keeping the storefront like a historical 1920’s 1910 building,” said Sanders.

Rebecca Tabb is a store owner in Starkville. She said that by keeping downtown historic, makes it feel like home.

“Keeping Main Street historic, I think there’s a draw to that, versus necessarily like Highway 12 or a high traffic street. I think people really have come back to shopping local and wanting to shop downtown and wanting things not necessarily be exactly how they were built really but really try to keep that downtown hometown feel,” said Tabb.

The city hopes to be a model for other towns in the state.

“We hope the Carl Small Town Center can use it as a template for other Mississippi communities to use so that they can use it to essentially either start some type of redevelopment in their downtown or just try to keep character historical character of their downtown,” said Sanders.

If the contract does pass then, Sanders hopes to have the product given to the city on October 1.