BY WESLEY YOUNG
SALISBURY POST

Salisbury needs more people living downtown, more attractive pedestrian streetscapes and a better sense of identity, speakers told the audience at Monday night’s session of the Salisbury Vision 2020 series of public education meetings,

The speakers, experts in downtown revitalization, marketing and development, said Salisbury’s got a lot going for it – in fact, it may have too much going for it, since the downtown area may be too large for the average tourist to cover on a visit.

‘‘Know who you are,’’ said Judy Randall, president and chief executive officer of Randall Travel Marketing. Tourists are looking for escapes to small-town America, she said. They’re tired of paying lots of money to stand in long lines at Disney World.

‘‘They are all out there looking for Mayberry,’’ Randall said, referring to the television show set in small-town North Carolina.

Salisbury lacks a sharply defined identity, Randall said. To illustrate her point, she told how the average person wouldn’t have a clue that ‘‘Spencer Shops’’ has anything to do with trains.

‘‘If you don’t tell them what it is, they don’t have any perception,’’ Randall said. ‘‘For all they know, you are a steak – Salisbury steak.’’

Monday’s event was the third in a series of public education forums, and is part of the city’s process of planning towards the year 2020. Monday’s event featured three speakers on the topic of ‘‘Preserving a Community’s Character and Heritage.’’

Speaker Jim McCurry, a developer of ‘‘urban village’’ projects, said people are looking for a pleasant place to hang out: a ‘‘third place’’ in addition to home and work. They want pedestrian walkways with character, coffee houses, specialty foods and restaurants.

To get all that in Salisbury, McCurry said, the city needs to get more people actually living downtown in the unused spaces above the retail shops and offices that line the downtown streets.

‘‘People want to be where other people are,’’ McCurry said.

With more people living downtown, McCurry said, more retail business will locate there.

‘‘Retail will follow – it is not a leader,’’ McCurry said. ‘‘It will follow where they work, where they live ... Retail can’t stand alone.’’

McCurry offered specific suggestions, based on a look around town:

- The city should photograph every building ‘‘exactly as it looks today’’ in order to pick out the telling details that don’t get noticed when one drives by. Then, the city should adopt design guidelines.

‘‘Before you put another penny to work, decide what you want it to look like,’’ McCurry said. ‘‘There are some beautiful buildings, and there is also some plywood tacked up.’

- The city should do a survey of downtown to find out the mix of business, residential and other uses.

- ‘‘Get housing under way immediately,’’ McCurry said.

- The city should give pedestrians a higher-quality experience. That could include banners or wrought iron signs that project on rods from the sides of buildings.

‘‘You don’t have a big plaza,’’ he said. ‘‘You don’t have a river front.’’ So the city must enhance the streetscapes that form the core of downtown, he McCurry said.

- Bring cultural experiences into downtown.

The first speaker who addressed the audience was J. Myrick Howard, executive director of Preservation N.C. Howard told the audience that not only does historic preservation make sense for historical and environmental reasons, it also makes sense on the bottom line.

‘‘Preservation has a mushroom effect,’’ Howard said, noting that one project causes others to get started.

Cities should think about old buildings downtown as possible ‘‘incubators for growth,’’ Howard said. In other words, the small buildings make perfect office spaces for small businesses that are getting started.

Plus there are new tax credits available for rehabilitation work, Howard said.

Howard showed slides detailing his group’s recent success story: the rehabilitation of a mill neighborhood on the ‘‘wrong side of the tracks’’ in Edenton.

In 16 months, the organization had sold all available 48 houses for renovation, Howard said. When finished, the work will represent a $12 million investment.

Neal Sansovich and Steve Fisher – both involved in redevelopment projects downtown – talked together afterward about how their visions coincide with what they heard in the presentation.

Sansovich is rehabilitating several old buildings as office and apartment spaces. Fisher, with F&M Bank, is involved with the renovation of the old Norman’s property as a new bank administrative center.

Both men found the talks a validation of what they’ve been planning.

‘‘Not only is beneficial, it makes sense,’’ Fisher said. Sansovich agreed with the emphasis on housing, calling it ‘‘the necessary component to fuel retail, restaurants and entertainment’’ downtown.

Joe Morris, with the city of Salisbury, told the Post afterwards that Salisbury is most likely identified elsewhere by its Food Lion corporate headquarters, by sites like the Civil War prison and by the colleges.

‘‘What I would like Salisbury to be is a small town that has done things right,’’ Morris said.

The next public education forum takes place 6-8 p.m. Tuesday, March 23, in the meeting room of the Rowan County Board of Commissioners at 130 W. Innes Street. The topic is ‘‘Regionalism.’’