The New Year in Newberry points to a promising 2016 with a number of things to be encouraged by.
A new bed-and-breakfast is open and welcoming guests. Newberry Manor on College Street is owned by Warren and Joy Sheppard and is a beautiful place to stay or hold events. The Hampton Inn is renovating all of its rooms and will make improvements in the lobby also. It continues to be a popular place for visitors to Newberry.
We’re excited to welcome Tim De Priest and Stephen Waller to Newberry as they purchased the BJ Graphix building on Wilson Road to house their two boat businesses.
Marine Pro Custom Boatworks is their long-time boat repair business they moved from Irmo, and Falcon Boats is their new boat manufacturing business. Tim and Stephen have much experience in the boat business, and we wish these two entrepreneurs much success.
BJ Graphix will continue to operate out of the front part of that building for a short while. In the spring Jackie Huggins says they’ll move to the old furniture store building behind Kneece’s Car Care off Wilson Road.
The practices of Montgomery and Riddle Eyecare and Branch and Stafford Optometric Associates will share a building, starting in the fall. Montgomery and Riddle are adding on to the Branch and Stafford building on Winnsboro Road and plan to move there in September, Dr. Keith Riddle says. The practices will continue to operate separately in the future.
If you like snow cones, you might like Pelican’s Snoballs as they plan to open in the spring at 1433 Wilson Road. A Southern chain that boasts 100 flavors of snow cones, Pelican’s Columbia franchisee will open a seasonal store here.
The city has hired a retail recruitment company, Retail Strategies of Birmingham, Ala., to promote and represent Newberry in recruiting new businesses. Their staff has already been to Newberry and made plans to promote Newberry with their national contacts and at trade shows.
As an example of what they’ll do, they’ll approach their contacts at Taco Bell, explain to them that Newberry is doing well and that Taco Bell should come back to Newberry. Retail Strategies has a good reputation with the cities they work with, including 12 in North Carolina.
Several infrastructure projects will be ongoing in 2016, including the College Street bridge replacement by SCDOT. While the project could stretch into 2017, the goal is to be complete by the end of this year. City water and sewer lines run under the bridge and will have to be moved during the first part of the process.
Work continues on several city projects, including the water plant at the Saluda River and Gallman Park. I’m excited to see the progress made on those in the coming months.
And even though it’s winter, there’s still a full calendar of local events, starting off with the free showing of The Peanuts Movie on Jan. 29 at 7 p.m. at the Opera House. The popular and tasty Healthy Chili Cook-off is at Memorial Park on Feb. 6. The Opera House has an exciting line-up for the winter and spring, and the Newberry Arts Center has full schedule of class offerings.
Finally, you may want to consider taking part in the first Newberry County Big Read, a community book reading in which many people in a community read the same book. This is done in many communities across the country.
The local book committee has selected “The World Made Straight” by noted Southern author Ron Rash. It’s available at Books on Main downtown, and Big Read activities will be publicized in The Observer, including a Feb. 29 event at the Opera House.
Thank you for supporting the many things going on in Newberry this year.