Georgia Trend Magazine Spotlights Douglasville and Douglas County

Georgia Trend Magazine, the magazine of Georgia business, politics and economic development, spotlighted Douglasville and Douglas County in its July Issue.  The magazine highlighted local business and community leaders and highlighted their thoughts on the economic situation in Douglas County.

The article entitled, “Coming Back: Location, optimism and a good business climate” written by reporter Randy Southerland, focused on how Douglasville was hard hit by the economic downturn and is slowly seeing progress towards recovery.  The overall message from the article is that Douglasville and Douglas County businesses, organizations and governments are creating and forming strong partnerships for the future.  Mayor Harvey Persons and Commission Chairman Tom Worthan are both committed to collaborating the future of  Douglasville and Douglas County as well as other organizations such as the DC Chamber, both City and County Development Authorities, Douglasville Convention and Visitors Bureau, West Georgia Technical College, and the Water and Sewer Authority.

Metro Bank CEO, Ken Barber mentions in the article that the area was hit hard due to the large concentration on residential development.  “Every month is getting a little bit better, and I’ve been hearing (from business owners and customers) that consistently for nine or 10 months,” commented Barber.

Chris Pumphrey, Executive Director of the Development Authority of Douglas County assured readers that while the unemployment rate is still low in Douglas County, it is above the state average but he also stated that companies are beginning to expand again.  “We didn’t really lose a lot of companies as far as industrial goes, we lost a lot of jobs,” stated Pumphrey.  With 70 percent of Douglas County residents leaving the community to work each day, Pumphrey is focusing his efforts on bringing more jobs into the community to keep residents closer to home.  Chamber President and CEO Kali Boatright discussed in the article that the retail industry in Douglasville is seeing major growth including new stores opening in Arbor Place Mall such as Forever 21 and H&M.