AU students team up with Restoration 154 to focus on new opportunities in Elba
The Pea River that flows through Elba was never seen as a recreational spot by native and founder of the nonprofit, Restoration 154, Justin Maddox. But when he returned to his hometown after graduating from college, he began to see the river and other spots in town differently.
“It’s all about opportunities,” Maddox said. Seeing challenges as opportunities, he said, motivated him and others to start Restoration 154, with the goal of creating 154 projects designed to foster community, attract tourism, and spur growth.
It all started on the banks of the Pea River. Maddox stated, “This is one of those things that everybody could enjoy. But if you don’t have a boat, then you don’t have a way to appreciate that resource.”
This is what lead to nonprofit’s focus on developing a boat shop, Pea River Outdoors, on the banks of the 154-mile-long Pea River.
Another challenge that became an opportunity, Maddox said, was Elba’s downtown square, where more and more buildings stood empty. “You just think about when it was bustling. People were downtown all the time. You hear people who grew up here talk about how their parents would drop them off at the theater, and they would go window shopping,” Maddox said.
This same theater is where the organization next put much of their efforts.
Just last spring, Restoration 154 celebrated when a new marquee was installed at the once-abandoned theater.
A short notice marquee lighting ceremony was planned. Executive Director of Restoration 154, Laurie Chapman, said the event was much bigger than anyone anticipated. With excitement for new life being brought downtown, more than 100 ended up coming to the ceremony. Chapman said, “I don’t remember how many exactly showed up. I just remember thinking ‘Oh my gosh we’re gonna run out of ice cream’.”
The Restoration 154 team is not stopping to rest. Next up is a long-range plan to improve recreational spaces in Elba. To help make their vision a reality, they called in Auburn University landscape architecture students.
Frank Hu, assistant professor of landscape architecture at Auburn, began a studio class in landscape architecture for junior undergraduate students in the spring of 2023 and needed somewhere for his students to work.
After Elba received a grant from the National Park Service, which would allow the NPS to develop a plan for a blue way on the Pea River, Chapman reached out to Hu. The goal was to have his students work on their projects in Elba in partnership with Restoration 154.
“In the spring of last year, we took the undergraduate students to Elba. We looked around and took in the opportunities that presented themselves in terms of recreational design,” Hu said. “I thought there was a ton of potential of a studio to happen in that area.”
Hu’s students shared his passion. He said, “After the students actually met with Restoration 154, they’re like ‘wow these people really care about what they want to do here’.” Hu and his students immediately began building blueprint plans for recreational areas in Elba.
He explained, “We’re not here to provide detailed designs that they can build, but rather we are there to provide an immersive and engaging concept through images and drawings they can use as leverage.”
This is how Dr. Hu can give his students real world experience for their future careers while also providing Restoration 154 with plans that will help build support and attract grants.
The process is never easy. Hu said small communities like Elba face unique challenges. “Rural communities get left behind, forgotten, but the university can advocate for those places and reach out to those areas and do our work in those areas because if we don’t, who will?”
He added, “We love doing work that is situated in the Southeast and really focusing on the collective communities that happens in these rural parts of the country. We love that.”
Dr. Hu and his landscape architecture students returned to Elba on April 19 to present their plans to the community. According to Chapman, many of the plans created by the students focused on the dam and boating dock located on the Pea River.
Chapman said she was “very impressed” with the plans the students created. All the designers are undergraduate students, but Chapman said the plans seemed “professional.”
The Pea River is full of opportunity, according to Hu, and it is a hope that these plans will bring give birth to more of the 154 projects Maddox and his team hope to complete in their lifetime.
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Tags: Elba
