(upbeat guitar music) - I grew up in Seneca.

It's actually a railroad town that was founded in 1873.

In the early years, there was lots of businesses in the downtown area before the shopping center came, but we went through a period of time when there wasn't a lot of development in the downtown and stores had closed.

Now we're seeing so much excitement, new businesses, lots of renovations in our downtown, and property that's actually been redone.

It started around 1998 with Mary's Building.

- We have been here, it'll be 22 years in February.

We started out as a small family business, and it has grown slowly but surely along with Seneca.

We're just very fortunate to live where we are, because our community has been a large part of M. Tannery & Sons becoming as successful as it has been.

I feel like we're kind of a staple in downtown Seneca.

We have a little bit of everything.

We started out as just antiques, but then as the market has changed, we try to change with it.

So we not only have antiques, we have vintage furniture, we have new furniture, we have used furniture.

We have a little bit of everything.

We have local artists.

We try to support our community in any way that we possibly can.

We have gifts.

We really like to say that we have something for everyone's taste and budget at M. Tannery & Sons.

- If you come downtown, you see the parking lot full.

You see the businesses open.

A lots of these are mom and pop businesses.

They really do support this community.

They live here in this community, and they wanna see Seneca thrive.

So I'm very excited, when I hear the noises, I hear development, I hear building being worked on.

I hear cars coming.

Have lots of great restaurants, a brewery, retail shop, clothing store, all types of things in downtown Seneca that you can come and enjoy.

- So the products that we carry here, are products that are gonna give you a moment just to take a pause, to find your mindfulness moment, whether that is engaging in a salt bath, or having a nice cup of tea for a tea meditation, or having just a beautiful Himalayan salt lamp that's able to provide a lot of health benefits, a lot of different products, that'll help you find your moment of pause.

(Tibetan singing bowl rings) My customers range from all sorts of people, from various religious backgrounds, from no religious backgrounds.

They're really just people kind of wandering in and they'll go, "Wow, this is unlike anything else in Seneca."

They're really excited to walk into Elements, and find products that they can't find anywhere else.

Everyone shops here.

(gentle music) - This is 313 Cafe in Seneca, South Carolina.

My partner and I started it about three years ago.

Through traveling, we really embraced the European cafe culture and wanted to bring that to Seneca, and 313 Cafe is meant to be a place where people can connect, gather, host events, host celebrations.

We want to become, and feel like we have become, an integral part of the community here in Seneca.

(blues music) - For our family, we thought that Seneca was a great fit.

When we first looked at downtown, we looked specifically at Ram Cat Alley, and there were just a few stores that had been renovated, small businesses, locally owned.

So we just thought that Ram Cat Alley had a great feel, a small town vibe, and that's what we grew up with, and we just saw such great potential in downtown Seneca.

- 313 comes from, my partner's from Detroit, Michigan, and he moved here in '06, and he absolutely just fell in love with the upstate area and Lake Keowee.

- Seneca is my hometown.

This is where I was born and raised.

I graduated from Seneca High School, and then I left and went away for college and graduate school, and started my life somewhere else, and when it came time for me to open my first retail location, Seneca was the only place that I ever considered.

(gentle guitar music) - We are so excited here at the city of Seneca, about some of the rebirth, revitalization, redevelopment that's occurring.

Over the last three or four years, we've seen an insurgence of investment and interest in our downtown area.

The city actually has wonderful partnerships with the business community and property owners.

The building behind me is a prime example of the role that the city of Seneca is playing in the downtown redevelopment.

The city owns the building behind me.

We actually have performed a demolition on portions of the building.

Right now, we are going to renovate the buildings into commercial spaces.

We'll be looking for investment partners to buy and renovate the rest of the buildings, so that we can have family-centered type businesses.

The green space that I'm standing in will be a park that actually borders the three buildings, and we're hoping that we have restaurants, retail/commercial, some type of sweet shop, whether it be donuts, candy, popcorn, coffee, and a deli.

And we really want it to be an environment where families come together, enjoy what downtown has to offer.

- My goal is to introduce people with some of the great things that we have to offer here in the city.

One of the main things, when people move into the area they're looking for things to do.

When I first came here about 12 years ago, we did maybe two, three events a year.

Now there's almost something to do every week, whether it's Jazz on the Alley, Cruisin' on Main, JeepFest, people discover, "Wow, this is pretty incredible.

I just wanna get my family here and make a new life here."

And or if people are looking to retire, I mean what better way to retire than on beautiful Lake Keowee.

(bright music) - Seneca Water Plant pulls our water from Lake Keowee.

We serve all the residents around the lake, in the city, and also the industrial companies in the county.

Our facility is located on the southern end of Lake Keowee.

We're all enclosed on this one little section, from our raw water tower, to our treatment plant, to our administration building.

We're rated at 14-million gallons a day.

We have the capacity to go to 20-million gallons a day.

So we have growth for the future.

(calm music) - I love everything about Seneca.

I tell people all the time.

I think that people are the most important part.

And then just the community at large, especially with COVID.

We had our regular customers that came in.

They didn't need anything.

They just said they wanted to buy something because they wanted to make sure we were here.

- The biggest attraction of Seneca, I believe, is its people.

You have residents and community members here that love one another.

They're inviting.

They wanna see improvements.

They wanna see this city move in a different direction.

I think it's that warmness, that invitingness, that eagerness that truly is our biggest asset.

- And I love this sense of community that people are constantly trying to build and develop.

I love that so many people are coming.

It seems like there's always a lot of interesting people that you're meeting, that are moving here, and that become the fabric of this community.

- The secret is out.

We have guests, and visitors, and people relocating to this area from all over the country because we have so much to offer.

We have great outdoor dining.

We have shopping.

We have recreational activities.

We have beautiful scenery.

I mean, we're 40 minutes from the mountains.

The lakes are right here.

We're just a few hours from the ocean, so there's so much to see and do, and you get all four seasons here.

- The best thing that I see about Seneca today is that Seneca has really done a 180 from the time that I grew up.

There is so many other opportunities offered here in Seneca and the town is really growing, and not just growing in terms of population, but in terms of the ideas, in terms of the inclusivity that's being created by our city administration, meaning we really have a government that promotes having women businesses, that have minority businesses, and making everyone feel as though this is their home.

- To me, I'm proud of Seneca for the way it's developed.

People that have moved here, and people that's lived here, how we're able to do things together to enjoy each other.

- I truly see this as a team effort to realize a vision that everybody is sharing together.

So I see continued investment downtown.

I see an opportunity where the city can kind of step aside and the private capital market will take over, and this trend will continue for the next five to 10 years, and this city will be a different place than it is even of today.

- This is our town.

- This is our town.

- And this is our town.

- This is our town, and we absolutely love it here.

- This is our town.

- This is our town.

We are Seneca strong.