Downtown Moultrie earns ‘Downtown of the Year’ award

MOULTRIE, Ga. (WALB) -Downtown Moultrie was recently awarded the Georgia Downtown of the year award.

Every good downtown starts with a great centerpiece and Moultrie has just that.

The Colquitt County Courthouse was once voted the prettiest courthouse in the state but it’s what Moultrie has done around the courthouse that really made the downtown a destination.

“We’ll continue to enhance our downtown one day at a time, but we will only be as successful as our citizens,” said Amy Johnson director of Downtown Development. “Elected officials and businesses want us to be and it’s been proven that they want our downtown to be successful because they attend events.”

Peter Dillard, City Clerk of Moultrie, said he’s lived in Moultrie long enough to see the transformation and make the vision come to life.

“We get so many positive comments because people. I’ve lived here for forty-two years, and I’ve seen the difference and how nice everything is,” he said. “We get compliments every week about our folks that work downtown, putting in pine straw, cutting trees, trimming shrubbery, making the downtown better and people notice that. We take pride in our downtown.”

Something that makes Moultrie stand out is how the city preserves its history.

They have transformed their pocket parks, created more tables and chairs for people to sit in and enhanced parking areas for easier access to restaurants and businesses.

“That’s networking. That is an incentive within itself where your downtown really is like an outdoor mall. Developers across the country are trying to replicate historic downtowns by building outdoor shopping centers. Well, we have the original downtown historic downtown,” said Johnson.

Downtown Moultrie will grow even more before the year is over. City leaders said three new restaurants and more retail shops will create even more reasons for people to visit.

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