As Macon-Bibb County moves into a new year, The Macon Newsroom previews 25 things to look for in 2025. The five-part series will publish on Dec. 24, 26, 30 and Jan. 1 and 3 and includes a variety stories from government, industry, education, business, arts and entertainment.
Mayor Miller promises a ‘wild ride’ beginning in 2025
Macon-Bibb County is starting the year off with a bang with the New Year’s Day implosion of the old Hilton hotel built in 1969, and the mayor pledges to keep up that explosive energy working throughout the community all year.
“You know how they say how you spend New Year’s is how you’re going to start and live the year, so we’re going to make a big statement on January 1st,” Mayor Lester Miller said at his inauguration.
He sees removing the blighted hotel as the first step toward new development and economic growth.
“It’s more than just an implosion. It’s part of a major transformation of a gateway into downtown, First Street, and more importantly, our entire community,” he said.
From the proposed East Bank development on the site of the old Bibb Mill, to exploring the possibility of enhancing Lake Tobesofkee with “glamping” options and other attractions, to the second season of the Atrium Health Amphitheater, renovation of the Middle Georgia Regional Airport and major road projects on the horizon, the mayor said we’re in for a “wild ride.”
Miller suggests a new arena and civic center, possibly on the downtown side of the river, as the community prepares to host Georgia’s first national park if Congress approves the proposal in its next term.
New riverfront development, which has been bandied about for at least four decades is gaining traction.
In recent years, Mercer Chancellor Kirby Godsey’s “Renaissance on the River” corporation held an option with the Urban Development Authority to develop more than seven acres the UDA owns along Riverside Drive between the Burger King and Second Street.
In December, Godsey transferred that option to the Corporation of Mercer University, which received a $5 million grant from the Knight Foundation in the quest to find a downtown location to build a new medical school.
In the 300 block of First Street, the UDA also owns the old Macon Health Club, which the mayor would like to see reopen, and the old bank building across the street that could become apartments.
During his inaugural remarks, Miller credited the accomplishments of his first term to teamwork he pledged to continue in 2025.
“It’s all of us doing what we can each and every day to make our community better,” he said.
P&Z plans to study housing trends and needs
Now that the Macon-Bibb County Planning & Zoning Commission has refreshed its Comprehensive Land Development Resolution that governs zoning, new guidelines for historic districts and a housing study are expected in 2025.
Ethos Preservation examined Macon’s historic district guidelines and conducted workshops over the past year to update regulations that hadn’t been touched in decades in some cases.
Since that time, new synthetic construction materials that are more durable are now available and could be included on the list of acceptable products for historic renovations.
P&Z Executive Director Jeff Ruggieri expects the new regulations to be complete by summer of 2025.
“So we’ll have all that, get that whole thing rewritten, new standards and new materials and possibly a different process,” Ruggieri said.
He’ll also commission a new housing study to better determine the needs of the community.
P&Z approved multiple apartment complexes after Ruggieri joined the staff in 2022, but only about half of them came to fruition, he said.
A housing study can help dictate what is feasible and help P&Z make better decisions.
“So we can understand where the population is going, where it wants to be, what are the price points. That’ll dictate our lot sizes, and things like that, on how we should move forward on the types,” Ruggieri said. “So, maybe we won’t approve 1700 units of apartments because we have a five-year plan here that says we only need 500.”
When formulating P&Z’s budget in mid-2025, Ruggieri also anticipates setting aside money to develop a new comprehensive plan for growth and development.
He plans to forge a community-led conversation to guide planners to develop the best strategies for the future.
New career pathways prep Bibb students for industrial jobs
Beginning in January, Bibb County school students will begin attending the new Innovation and Technology Academy in the old Butler Collision Center at 2122 Eisenhower Parkway.
Students studying robotics will be the first to take advantage of the career pathways at the new facility for focused Career, Technical and Agricultural Education, or CTAE.
Cassandra Miller-Washington, Bibb County School District’s Executive Director of CTAE and CFO at the W.S. Hutching College & Career Academy, said they’ve outgrown their current building on Anthony Road.
Skills for cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, or AI, and electric vehicles will eventually be taught in that new building.
Before the first class begins in the new facility, plans already are underway to expand and establish new advanced manufacturing pathways for students to learn skills needed to work for major industries in Macon.
With dual enrollment through Central Georgia Technical College, students will be earning college credits while in high school.
Miller-Washington also serves on the Macon-Bibb County Industrial Authority, MBCIA, which has corralled leaders from existing industries to serve on an advisory board to hone the effort to train their future workers with necessary skills.
Preparing students for work not only secures their futures, but protects manufacturers’ investment in the county.
“The skill set and developing that pipeline for them is critical or the businesses won’t stay if they don’t have a true workforce. So, this would give our students a chance to graduate with credentials and go directly to work,” Miller-Washington said.
MBCIA Executive Director Stephen Adams said Macon’s industrial community is eager to join the effort.
The advisors will help create a manufacturing pipeline that teaches basic skills that can be used in a variety of industries in the area.
New members of Macon-Bibb County Commission
Two new Macon-Bibb County commissioners with decades of public safety experience take their seats in January.
In District 4, retired Macon-Bibb County firefighter Joey Hulett, who also has a construction business, replaces Mallory Jones, who was term-limited. In the consolidation charter, county commissioners were limited to three, four-year terms.
Retired Bibb County sheriff’s deputy Donice Bryant spent 25 years with the department before retiring to succeed Virgil Watkins Jr., who was also term-limited in District 8.
Bryant was born in Perry and raised in Atlanta before coming to Macon to work at the sheriff’s office. She expects her law enforcement background to help her on the commission.
“I know the laws and I know the people in the community,” Bryant said. “I’m not from here, so people I meet are like my family.”
Hulett grew up in Bloomfield, attended Southwest High School and has lived his whole life in Macon with more than half of that spent on the fire department.
He decided to put his public safety skills and business background to use in office.
“Basically trying to help the county move through these situations,” Hulett said after December’s inauguration ceremony.
District 3’s Elaine Lucas and District 9’s Al Tillman did not fully complete their third and final terms.
In October, Stanley Stewart replaced Lucas, who was elected to District 1 on the Macon Water Authority.
Brendalyn Bailey took over for Tillman who resigned in January of 2024 to pursue opportunities with his entertainment business.
In August, the county agreed to a $65,000 one-year contract for the Tillman family’s Teeger Entertainment and Consultants to recruit acts and schedule events for Henderson Stadium.
Macon-Bibb, Muscogee Creek leaders to get FEMA training
Dozens of disaster responders and community partners will travel to Emmitsburg, Maryland, in March to attend the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Integrated Emergency Management Course.
Each year, FEMA selects one community from each region for the training and Macon-Bibb County’s EMA is the only organization in the Southeast invited for 2025.
The 60 people who will be attending the course represent those organizations on the front line in disasters including public safety, government, utilities, healthcare and communications.
About 10 years ago, Macon-Bibb County sent a delegation to FEMA’s facility for disaster response training, but this time representatives of the Muscogee Creek Nation also will be attending the course.
“This is also the first time a tribal nation and a county have conducted this level of training in the history of FEMA,” the Nation’s Emergency Management Director Bobby Howard said in a news release.
Ocmulgee National Park and Preserve Initiative Director of Advocacy Tracie Revis said the training will not only help the Nation protect their people and property in Oklahoma, but in their ancestral home.
“Below the ground there are cultural artifacts that are deeply significant; however, when a natural disaster occurs it does not care who is on the land,” Revis said in the news release.
Over four days, the trainees will participate in simulated disasters and crisis situations in the controlled learning environment of the Emergency Management Institute.
Macon-Bibb’s EMA chose the hazards and the core skills it wants to simulate in training.
EMA Director Spencer Hawkins said Macon-Bibb County’s 2015 training helped the county’s response to Hurricane Irma and the COVID-19 pandemic.
“Disasters are getting more intense and more frequent, and we need to be prepared,” Hawkins said in the release.
— Civic Journalism Senior Fellow Liz Jarvis Fabian covers Macon-Bibb County government entities and can be reached at [email protected] or 478-301-2976.
