KANNAPOLIS – Though the old Centerview neighborhood has offered few new business
opportunities in the past decade, city officials hope the area can now reveal winning
strategies for the rest of Kannapolis. City planners and residents will come together June 9-11 in the
city’s Vision Center, 120 S. Main St., for all-day workshops on community planning
and design.
The workshops will focus in part on the old
Centerview neighborhood, where various business offices and shops thrived for many years
because cut-through traffic between downtown Kannapolis and the four-lane U.S. 29 provided
a steady stream of customers.
When state road crews completed Loop Road
in the mid-’80s, this traffic died and business in the Centerview neighborhood dried
up.
Most commercial buildings in the area are
now vacant. Last summer, one of the remaining holdouts moved. After 55 years on Old
Centergrove Road, Centerview Hardware moved to Jackson Park shopping center on North
Cannon Boulevard.
Store co-owner Bill Propst agreed Thursday
that the completion of Loop Road sealed the area’s fate.
‘‘It (business) pretty much died
for everybody else,’’ Propst said. ‘‘Our business didn’t
increase, but we kind of held our own’’ thanks to customer loyalty.
‘‘The only reason we moved was we
needed more space.’’
Centerview Cafe is one of the only
remaining businesses in Centerview. The eatery also survived thanks to loyal customers,
according to the cafe’s owners.
Fresh interest in Centerview spiked in
March when the city Planning Board took a look at plans to renovate a commercial building
there for apartments. Phil Lippard of P.J. Properties, a real estate agent representing an
unnamed commercial developer, asked the board to approve the renovation of a
7,000-square-foot office building encompassing the 400 block of Old Centerview Road.
Lippard said the project, which required a
rezoning from commercial to residential use, would help spark a ‘‘mini urban
redevelopment’’ in the area.
But board members tabled a vote on the
issue, claiming the rezoning could constitute ‘‘spot zoning’’ since
all surrounding properties would still be zoned for commercial use.
The board suggested Lippard canvass the
neighborhood to see if other property owners would be willing to rezone.
According to city officials and contracted
planners, Centerview’s decline may present the city an opportunity to learn how to
plan for the future.
Joe Lanford heads up Urban Strategies, a
private planning firm in Rock Hill, S.C. Lanford, a former Rock Hill city manager, said
this morning the Centerview neighborhood serves as an example for the city as a whole.
‘‘It’s sort of a microcosm
of the entire city,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s sort of a mixed
neighborhood, racially and in terms of income and housing types, and it has a school in
it.’’
The meetings in June will draw from
concepts outlined by residents who over the past few months served on strategic planning
theme groups, Lanford said. For example, some theme group members have pointed out the
need for stricter landscaping requirements for businesses and apartments. Other members
have complained about litter problems in the city and a lack of commercial and industrial
development.
The groups also pointed out the city’s
strong points, such as good diversity and strong opportunities for growth.
‘‘What we’re trying to do is
take some of the designs or concepts from the theme groups and turn those into conceptual
plans, not definite plans, but more prototypical examples,’’ Lanford said.
So the meetings in June probably will not
produce any official plan for revitalizing the Centerview neighborhood, but city planners
may base future plans on ideas presented there, Lanford said.
‘‘And we’ll be looking at
some examples in other areas of the city, as well,’’ he said.
Anyone wanting to participate in the
workshops can just show up, Lanford said.
‘‘We’ll probably be working
late into the night, and it will be sort of a casual thing,’’ he said.
‘‘Anybody who would like to come in and critique things and give their input,
they’d be welcome.’’
For more information, call the Vision
Center at 938-1940. |
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