News-Record.com

Sunday's editorial.
From all the recent talk about the crowds in downtown Greensboro, you’d think the place was absolutely jumping, from one edge to another.

And you’d be wrong.

For all of the good things that are suddenly happening in the center city, 90 percent of them occur within a two-block area of South Elm Street.

Even when downtown is at its rowdiest, take a brief stroll only a few yards east, west, north or south, and the shadows grow so long and the silence so conspicuous, you’d wonder if you were on another planet.

That’s not altogether a bad thing. Downtown needs quiet buffers that separate the party crowd from residents simply looking for a good night’s sleep. But it also needs balanced growth and activity.

That’s why a consultant’s recommendations to create an expanded cultural district along Church Street make good sense. It’s also why another consultant’s study about downtown’s retail needs is equally intriguing.

The 50-page report on the cultural district is the more ambitious of the two. It suggests concentrating that activity east of Elm Street to jump-start more activity and investment there. As it is now, the study says, downtown contains scattered “clusters of vitality” with “no critical mass in any one location.”

And it offers some useful suggestions on how to fix that.

Spreading the wealth
Among the ideas the consultant, HR&A Advisors of New York, shared last week at a briefing with City Council members:

-- Invest $14 million over the next 10 years to expand the cultural district, primarily along Church Street.
-- Designate sites for development in that area, including the GTA site at Church and East Market Street (shops and residential); the 3.6-acre News & Record parking lot at Washington, Church and Davie streets (“cultural anchor”); and land owned by the Weaver Foundation at Church and Friendly Avenue (“north cultural campus”) for key development.

-- Use streetscaping improvements to connect various downtown attractions.
-- Create a “Church Street Investment Council” to oversee the execution of the plan.
-- Finish what’s being done on Elm Street, most notably the International Civil Rights Center and Museum, whose completion has been delayed by politics, construction problems and funding needs.

HR&A concluded that the museum “is by far the most critical initiative in undertaking any plan to advance Greensboro’s cultural community.” Three of the four speakers at last week’s State of the Community luncheon seconded that motion, mentioning it as a top priority.

The museum is the most glaring example of unfinished business in the center city and needs to get done. Sooner rather than later.

When you are imagineering like this, the sky’s the limit. For instance, the HR&A report features a cover photo of the Greensboro skyline that not only depicts the new Center Pointe tower, but a much taller sister high-rise beside it — which does not currently exist. We can only wish.

But the report takes a realistic look at how downtown can leverage such assets as the Children’s Museum and the Cultural Center to spread growth beyond South Elm.

Shopping for shops
The second report, by H. Blount Hunter Retail & Real Estate Research of Norfolk, Va., makes some humbling assessments about how far downtown has — and has not — come. The report acknowledges the thriving nightlife downtown, then questions whether that might be too much of a good thing. Downtowns should include no more than 60 percent restaurants and bars, said the firm’s president, Blount Hunter. Greensboro “is more like 80-20 or 90-10.”

The study casts a healthy focus on retail downtown, and it reminds us of the spotty performance of many businesses there. Among Hunter’s recommendations: create a “priority retail zone” along the first six blocks of South Elm Street that prefers shops over offices and bars.

The other obvious advantage of such a plan would be to contain the nightlife far enough away from residences such as Southside so those homeowners avoid being disturbed by other people’s good times.

Both reports couldn’t be timelier, as recent concerns about crowds and public safety on Elm Street point out the need to manage growth more carefully and proactively.

Many of the success stories downtown have come on their own, with no over-arching master plan to drive them.

Now’s a good time to take stock of that progress and to connect the dots moving forward.