News-Record.com

You may (but probably don't) remember a short story I wrote about a redevelopment plan for High Point's Southside neighborhood, which is just south of downtown and bounded by these four streets: Taylor Avenue, South Main Street, West Green Drive and West Ward Avenue.

The city paid a consultant about $49,000 from a community development block grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to work with residents to develop the plan. Its highlights include turning the Main Street-Elm Street-Hamilton Street into a mixed-used development featuring office, retail and residential developments while rebuilding Main Street to make it a tree-lined street with a median. Other notable elements include lots of new housing, building a greenway along a creek that runs through the community and rezoning industrial land for residential use.

Want to see precisely what the taxpayers' money paid for? You can check out the full report right here.

The city's next step is to use about $190,000 it has set aside from the same HUD block grant to begin purchasing property in the neighborhood for new housing, said Michael McNair, the city's director of community development and housing. Developers would then be brought in to build and sell the new houses.

Depending on how quickly land can be purchased, McNair said, there could be activity as soon as this summer.But the revitalization won't be quick, he said.

"We're going to be in Southside for a while," McNair said. "(It'll take) 10 to 20 years to pull it off."

The area around High Point's downtown could change radically in the coming years. Along with the city's plans for Southside, there's the ongoing rebuilding of the Macedonia community - which has produced a community center, new houses and a ballfield - GTCC's plans to expand its High Point campus and the High Point Housing Authority's proposal to rebuild the Clara Cox public housing community.

(This post was updated at 4:05 to clarify where the money is coming for the Southside improvements)