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Editorial - November 2003 |
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Downtown’s future never looked so good |
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Published November 24, 2003 |
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A showing of more than 100 people for last week’s Downtown Summit shows off our citizens’ appetite for success in planning the future of Lincolnton’s downtown. This impressive gathering at the First United Methodist Church Fellowship Hall Tuesday night set the stage for a brain-storming, goal-setting session, Rodney Swink, director of urban development with the N.C. Department of Commerce, facilitated the discussion, which led to a vision of a bustling downtown that offers lots to do at night and weekends. Some more elaborate visions included canoeing on the South Fork River, taking a trolley through town and attending concerts at an amphitheater. Many still express a desire to maintain Lincolnton’s small-town atmosphere while offering amenities of a larger city. Of course, it’s easy to sit around and dream about how nice things can be in the future. Turning all of this talk into a plan of action is the difficult part. The lists of suggestions that were made at this meeting will be compiled and presented to the Downtown Development Association for review. A concise overview will then be distributed back to the participants. From there, officials will begin working on a new action plan for downtown. Any candid government bureaucrat will tell you the usual fate of goal-setting plans. They get printed up nicely in a binder and filed away on somebody’s shelf. We urge the DDA to take this summit seriously with a follow-up program that doesn’t let it die. Formal presentations to city and county governments would be a good beginning. All recommendations should have a timetable. It’s interesting to note that just two days later the DDA hosted a Chamber After Hours event featuring a mock upstairs loft above the Court Street Grille. It was an extraordinary sight to see, even from the downtown sidewalks where you usually don’t see anything lit up on a second floor. Having people actually live above the shops downtown is an upscale trend for today’s modern Main Street communities. This showcase proved that it can be done here. We hope these good ideas about downtown are developed to the fullest at a time when so many people show how important it is to this community.
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© 2001 Lincoln Times-News |
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