Winston-Salem putting feet on its streets

BY EMILY BATTLE

I never thought the town I grew up in was anything special.

As a teenager, I took Winston-Salem, a city in what North Carolina calls its "Piedmont Triad," for granted.

Old Salem--the historic Moravian village that offers a glimpse at what life was like in Salem long before it joined with Winston in 1913--was an overdone school field trip.

Having the Reynolds tobacco family's name on everything from my high school to the local airport to one of the major cross-town roads was to be expected.

And downtown--well, let's just say if I was going downtown, I was hoping I'd hit all the green lights so I could zoom on to where I was going, which was anywhere but downtown.

I've spent six of the 10 years I've been away from Winston watching officials in Virginia cities struggling to energize their downtowns.

Suddenly, my old stomping grounds don't look so shabby.

Here are a few of the principles I've heard in six years of sitting in downtown planning meetings that I see at work in my own hometown:

BYE, BORING BOULEVARD

The wide, one-way thoroughfare I used to speed down to get to somewhere else is now a giant outdoor dining room.

The city spent money to convert the street to two-way and built bump-outs that slow the cars but make room for restaurants to put tables on the sidewalk.

Before this move, Fourth Street--one of the main drags through town--had fewer dining options than the mall food court.

Now, diners can choose from among Thai food, pizza, deli fare, upscale and cheap eats. There's even a microbrewery.

CULTIVATING CUSTOMERS

Like a lot of other cities, Winston-Salem has approached the problem of creating a market for businesses to serve in its downtown by adding housing.

Since 2000, the number of housing units in the city's downtown has gone from fewer than 500 to the nearly 1,800 that are built, under construction or proposed today.

Recent projects include everything from an independent-living facility to the high-end One Park Vista condominium complex on one of the main downtown streets.

But before high-end housing started going up, a private nonprofit was trying to lure people back to the center of the city through a focused special-events program.

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IF YOU VISIT: Winston-Salem is about a 5-hour drive from Fredericksburg. It makes a nice stop-off if you're heading to the North Carolina mountains. TO SEE: Reynolda House, the opulent home built by Richard Joshua Reynolds in 1914. It's home to the Museum of American Art. In addition to the art collection, the trappings of the Reynolds' life of luxury make this house a worthwhile visit. My favorite was always the basement bowling alley. The grounds offer extensive walking trails that connect to the Wake Forest University campus, and the unique village the Reynolds family built to support the estate is now home to shops and restaurants. reynoldahouse.org TO EAT: Barbecue, of course. There's plenty of good 'cue to be had in town, but Winston is only about 20 miles from Lexington, N.C., self-proclaimed "Barbecue Capital of the World." The annual Barbecue Festival, which attracts more than 100,000 people, will be held Oct. 25 this year. barbecuefestival.com TO READ: If you plan to visit Winston and you'd like to go educated, I recommend "The Guilded Leaf," by Patrick Reynolds and Tom Shachtman, which will give you a good idea of how Winston and Salem developed and how much the towns were influenced by the Reynolds tobacco family.

Read more stories about Fredericksburg
Date published: 9/28/2008

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