Angier, Dunn Revitalize Their Downtown Districts
Angier officials were excited in 2007 when the North Carolina Department of Commerce granted the community Small Town Main Street status.
“The state helped us a lot with defining what we wanted to do with our downtown district, mainly with design suggestions and promotional tips,” says Coley Price, Angier town manager. “It has already resulted in upgrades to sidewalks, landscaping improvements and streetscape enhancements.”
Price says that as soon as Angier received its Small Town Main Street designation, a local committee was formed to meet once a month and share different ideas about how downtown can remain fresh and vital.
“One of our primary initiatives was to put together a building façade improvement effort,” Price says. “To our pleasant surprise, the owners of 10 individual buildings have participated in the program, and all 10 of their façade upgrades were completed by June 2009.”
As for new businesses, a restaurant and a dentist’s office opened in downtown Angier during 2009, as well as a North Carolina Department of Transportation Division of Motor Vehicles office.
“In addition, a park was renovated, and there are four new apartments available for rent,” Price says. “Good things have been happening lately in downtown Angier.”
Meanwhile, the city of Dunn has also been busy with recent downtown revitalization efforts, with perhaps the most important piece of news being that a Downtown Dunn Development Corp. has been formed.
“Dunn’s downtown never totally dried up over the years like in many other downtowns in small U.S. towns – but it does need a jump-start,” says Dal Snipes, chairman of the Dunn Downtown Development Corp. “We have a good nucleus of shops. Now, we just need more action.”
Snipes says that to raise money for improvements, the nonprofit DDDC has formed a municipal tax district to draw money from downtown establishments.
“In other words, downtown business owners are taxing themselves another 12 cents per $100 of evaluation in order to raise money for downtown upgrades,” he says. “It’s an additional burden to downtown building owners, but everyone is on board. We have so far collected $100,000 in tax money that will go solely toward future renovation projects.”
Snipes says the DDDC wants to partner with the city of Dunn in the overall beautification of the downtown district.
“The city will need to tear up downtown streets for water and sewer replacement as soon as they can find the money, while the DDDC will then install sidewalk brick pavers, lampposts, planters, trees and benches,” he says. “Dunn isn’t a Main Street community because to actually qualify, a community must have a full-time director in place – and that costs money. The $40,000-$50,000 to fund that position wouldn’t be the best use of our money at this time. So for now, the DDDC will continue to bank the tax money and then oversee nice downtown upgrades when the time is right.”
Story by Kevin Litwin
