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Today, Winston-Salem offers diverse cuisine at downtown restaurants, such as the Mellow Mushroom (above).
City residents and officials have made a 'conscious effort There are open places to play in today's downtown Winston-Salem. The community has pulled together. |
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
Having the Reynolds
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.
Glenda Keels, vice president of the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership, said the group 11 years ago began its revitalization efforts with some serious event planning.
"It was a conscious effort to create Winston-Salem events," she said. "We raised the money and started this program that brought people downtown who hadn't come in years."
That included a lot of folks who lived within a few minutes' drive from the city center. The events run the gamut from music festivals and concerts to a spring celebration of North Carolina wines.
PUBLIC PARTICIPATION
The critical mass was enough to convince city leaders--in both government and business--to relocate the minor-league baseball stadium from a site near the city's fairgrounds to the center of town.
If you take Interstate 40-Business into Winston, you'll see an impressive brick structure rising right next to the highway as it passes through the city center.
This is a private project that got a boost from incentives packages worth more than $40 million from both Winston-Salem and Forsyth County, of which the city is a part.
It includes not only the ballpark but an adjacent mixed-use commercial development aimed at livening up what had been an underperforming area in the middle of town.
PRESERVING THE PAST
Although downtown Winston-Salem isn't a histor-
Downtown is adjacent to "Old Salem," the restored Moravian village, first settled in 1766, that is now listed as a National Historic Landmark.
Winston was a more bustling, industrial place when the two towns were still separate.
That heritage is evident in one of the most recognizable symbols of the Winston-Salem skyline--the R.J. Reynolds building, built as the headquarters of the tobacco giant.
This 25-story art-deco tower was built in 1929 and used as a model for the Empire State building in New York City.
The more industrial remnants of the golden age of tobacco haven't been forgotten. Several old warehouses have been converted to loft-style apartments.
Walking through my hometown these days, I see a lot of things at work that I've heard theorized about at government meetings.
A city that I once joked was the last place I'd want to end up after college is now a place I look forward to visiting.
Emily Battle: 540/374-5413
Email: ebattle@freelancestar.com
| 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. |
