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Rocky Mount Mills is backed by Capitol Broadcasting and the Fletcher/Goodmon family (they own WRAL, Fox 50, the Durham Bulls, Mix 101.5, etc). They were instrumental in revitalizing downtown Durham as well. We don't really have anyone that wealthy working on downtown here but that CommunitySmith group seems like a good partner.
Nothing frustrates me more than to see a city like Rocky Mount or Wilson do something that Greenville should have had upteen years ago.
A prime example would be Wilson's Greenlight fiber-optic Internet service. I figured Greenville would be the first in eastern NC to have fiber. Certainly not Wilson!
Rocky Mount Mills is backed by Capitol Broadcasting and the Fletcher/Goodmon family (they own WRAL, Fox 50, the Durham Bulls, Mix 101.5, etc). They were instrumental in revitalizing downtown Durham as well. We don't really have anyone that wealthy working on downtown here but that CommunitySmith group seems like a good partner.
And Taft-Ward. And this new group from Baltimore. And ECU.
The City (Council) just needs to facilitate things. And get out of the way.
When the Boundary project was proposed, one councilperson actually was against giving Taft-Ward the right of way road that divided their multiple properties and wouldn't be necessary anymore....actually wanted to stop a $40 million project to argue about giving away something not needed.
Used to laugh when former Mayor Jenkins used to call Greenville "progressive". Certainly not politically.
I'm sure they went the cheaper way out. There was already a building shell there large enough to support something large like a convention center . I'm sure Hilton gave a lot of incentive to help the city make the decision. There also wasn't as much of a focus on the uptown area back in 05 like it has been the last 5 years. The convention center is still successful, even if they did choose to put it in the wrong place.
Personally, I'd like to see something similar (but smaller) to the Red Hat Amphitheater in Raleigh come to uptown.
Maybe a baseball stadium & amphitheater combo somewhere in the Dickinson Ave/10th street corridor? That would bring lots of people immediately to the area pretty much every week of the Spring, Summer, and Fall. One can only dream at this point!
Evidently there wasn't the corporate support for a baseball team in Greenville? I remember the Chamber doing a study several years ago but never heard of the results and the whole thing went quite. Now Kinston is very close to bring a team back that would likely squash Greenville's opportunity. An uptown ballpark is a fantastic idea. IIRC before ECU built Clark LeClair, former ECU AD Terry Holland floated the idea of a joint venture with the city to build a park uptown that could've been used for ECU and for a minor league or summer league team....
Last time I saw anything about it was in a presentation regarding the Dickinson Ave corridor by the group that was paid to study the area and make recommendations.
Looks like on page 10 or 11 there is mention of a baseball stadium in a section on the south side of 10th street, but it doesn't go into much detail.
I think a baseball stadium would work well somewhere on Dickinson. The 10th street connector will help expand the development area. Once we have more of the buildings going up, the more surrounding areas will go up for sale or changed for development. A stadium would immediately anchor the development of the area. I think the stadium should be a multi-purpose stadium that could host baseball games , soccer matches, and concerts/festivals. Hooking up with the coastal plains league would be ideal for now, but it is getting crowded (16 teams now).
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