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I had a nice talk with former city council candidate Julie Lapham this morning about the vacant YWCA building downtown. As the News & Record reported, the price has been cut on the building for a second time, it's down to $1.7 million.
Julie says there are some good ideas floating around out there for possible uses for the place. She'd like to see it accommodate a one-stop clearinghouse for human services, housing representatives from legal aide and law enforcement to refugee services and housing assistance. Another idea, possibly in tandem with the clearing house, is for a theater -- a performance space for the public performance arts agencies such as Community Theatre of Greensboro, Greensboro Ballet, Greensboro Children's Theatre and the myriad other performance groups currently lacking a modern, affordable and appropriately-sized theater.
Personally, the theater appeals to me. The idea of a downtown theater for the community performance groups is something I've long thought would be of great benefit to Greensboro. Doing it right would include a scene shop and rehearsal space.
Any ideas for new uses of this property are going to require some substantial funds both for purchase and rehabilitation, and the commercial options are limited -- Julie says McDonalds looked, but declined because of the limited access. As I told Julie, this is probably a terrible time for projects that would require public monies, but Julie thinks that might not be necessary. She thinks that with the right plan, Greensboro citizens would fund its capitalization through contributions. I think she might be right.
Roch, I recall hearing something about tearing that old YWCA down and expanding the Festival Park area, extending it even out to Davie Street. Davie Street would actually be closed to traffic and the long-range plan would be to merge Festival Park with Center City Park across the street, sort of turning that whole block into a "mall" of some sorts. Have you heard anything about that?
ReplyDeleteHi John, thanks for commenting. Skip Moore mentions that possibility in the N&R article. I found it was interesting to learn that there are other ideas being floated too.
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year Roch! Here's to another great year of blogging in Greensboro. Thanks for the link from time to time.
ReplyDeleteJan & Dave
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