With a new name in the works and a mission to show some progress on their long-term projects, Sylva Partners in Renewal is looking at renewing themselves.

During a day-long retreat held in Cherokee Saturday (June 11), SPIR members discussed the non-profit’s past, present and future as a downtown development organization. The general consensus? No one takes them seriously.

“I walk into a store to say I’m from SPIR and here’s a new newsletter and I know that they’re just going to throw it away as soon as I walk out the door,” said SPIR Administrator Linda Gillman. “It makes it hard to put on a smile and open up the next door and do it again.”

The group lamented its lack of representation on town and county committees, town planner Jim Aust’s failure to contact SPIR members regarding new businesses and expansions, and a general public perception of the organization as being lethargic and ineffective.

“I think you’re very astute in saying ‘we need to show action’,” planning consultant David Quinn told SPIR members.

Board members cited the Mill Street project — a streetscaping design project that should realign parking, plant trees, and place new side walks along the one-way, westbound parallel to Main Street — as a case of bureaucratic red tape leading to delays. The project has gone through several adjustments with design firm Barge, Waggoner, Sumner and Cannon with plans finally earning public and governmental approval in late 2004. At the time the firm was chosen — back in 2001 — SPIR officials estimated a six-month design process.

While some downtown merchants declined to speak about the organization, SPIR has earned credit for its Main Street revitalization project with decorative lighting, benches, landscaping and brick walkway accents undertaken in 1998. The project was funded by town monies.

“I’d say that they have spearheaded numerous changes in the appearance of Main Street,” said Livingston Kelley, owner of Livingston’s Photo. “I think they’ve worked diligently and successfully.”

With the onset of SPIR’s 10th anniversary, the organization embarked on a campaign to raise $100,000 for the construction of a community pavilion, near the town parking lot just off Mill Street. Community members have questioned the cost of the pavilion through letters written to the Sylva Herald.

Kelley agreed that raising money for such a project might not be the best way to go about it. Donations are increasingly hard to come by.

“We’ve become a non-profit city. There’s too many of them, really, and it’s stressing everyone’s budget,” Kelley said.

Part of the $100,000 cost appeared as though it would be deferred when developers recently proposed moving the town’s post office about a block from its current downtown location to a lot next to the future pavilion site, rather than placing it in the already chosen Jackson Plaza. In exchange for reaching a parking agreement with the town, the developers said they would contribute $60,000 to the cost of building the pavilion.

That proposal was shot out of the water when lot owner Jim Gray, publisher of the Sylva Herald, was advised not to sell by his attorney, Gillman reported at the SPIR retreat. As a result, SPIR decided to begin looking for in-kind donations — lumber, landscaping, construction crews — rather than hoping for money.

But as SPIR realigns with a potential name change that would clearly delineate the organization’s focus as being on downtown, not town-wide, group members worried that the funding they already receive from the town could be in jeopardy.

In 2002, newly elected Sylva town board member Eldridge Painter questioned the town’s $20,000 a year commitment to SPIR. The hiring of a town manager, Painter said, negated the need for SPIR. Additionally, the funds — down from their $30,000 mark — only went to serve a portion of town merchants, but town government is responsible for the town as a whole, Painter said. Currently the town earmarks $10,000 for SPIR.

SPIR members agreed to individually speak to town board members regarding the proposed name change to define its focus on downtown and possible affects on town financing.

Additional funding from the town or other sources, depending on the how the case may be, could come from a type of membership fee for downtown merchants used to promote the town as a destination spot, akin to a $300 fee Dillsboro merchants pay for advertising and marketing. Board members said there’s no organization to specifically promote Sylva, as the town doesn’t have its own chamber of commerce. The Jackson County Chamber of Commerce — located on Main Street in Sylva — is designed to promote the county as a whole, they said.

Getting merchants to agree to the fee might be difficult, Quinn told board members, but Sylva bears a great economic importance to the county as a whole.

“There is no place in the county that duplicates downtown Sylva,” Quin said. “It is a hallmark for the county, as well as the city.”

Board members also questioned tapping into the county’s occupancy tax.

“I don’t think we’re getting our fair share of the hotel/motel tax,” said SPIR member John Kevlin, who owns Metrostat Technologies.

“We’re not getting any,” Gillman said.

Moving forward with the Mill Street and Pavilion projects, board members agreed to add more projects to their list — distribution of a survey to determine the dollar value of a parking space; inventory of available building space within downtown; and creation of a outdoor performance area in Centennial Park. The park is located in the curve on the way up to the old Jackson County Courthouse, which would be linked to the courthouse fountain by way of new sidewalks.

“I think the bottom line, and it’s been the same for my 34 years in Sylva, if you don’t do more about parking you don’t need to do anything else,” Kelley said.