Agenda from recent meeting.
North Main Street/Lexington Avenue

Current Condition: Because of the prevalence of showroom development in High Point’s downtown, the North Main Street corridor has evolved into a “de facto” downtown in the sense that the area is the location that many citizens frequent for the same goods and services that they used to find downtown. In effect, North Main Street has become an alternative to downtown.

Goal: To encourage development and reinforce the existing businesses along North Main Street (centered at Lexington Avenue) to provide the community with a retail, dining, and entertainment destination.

Advantages:

1. Proximity of Commercial Development along North Main/Lexington to established and prosperous residential neighborhoods within a five-minute walk from the east and west.
2. Existing urban design of many existing buildings is advantageous to creation of a pedestrian-friendly commercial area.
3. Current mixture of retail stores, restaurants and bars could produce an evening dining, shopping, and entertainment environment.
4. Great potential for future commercial/residential/mixed-use development

Disadvantages:

1. Depth of lots along much of the North Main Corridor.
2. Lack of on-street parking
3. Five lanes of traffic along North Main Street
4. No coordination/organization of business and marketing efforts
5. No “area identity.”
6. Lack of pedestrian-friendly amenities (benches, well-defined crosswalks, crossing lights, streetscaping, etc.)

Plan: To accomplish the Goal by:

1. Developing a marketable “identity” for the North Main/Lexington area as “Uptown” – a retail, dining and entertainment destination.
2. Fostering development of Uptown as a pedestrian-friendly, safe, and walkable shopping, dining, and entertainment district.
3. Encouraging the development of higher-density mixed-use development at North Main and Lexington Avenue.
4. Creation of an “Uptown Association” that can organize and market the Uptown area through the use of centralized management techniques, such as:

a. Coordination of days and hours of operation
b. Development of an Uptown logo and signage
c. Joint advertising
d. Organization of Special Events and sales promotions
e. Pursuit of business retention, expansion and recruitment.