Downtown Development
"Phasing Back to Downtown Crowds" Video Series with Elliott Sidewalk Communities:
The transformation of downtown High Point is underway due to an impressive collaborative effort of city government, many business and community leaders, Forward High Point, several benefactors, and master developer Elliott Sidewalk Communities.
The High Point City Council established a strategic goal “to create a downtown catalyst project” to increase the commercial tax base and create a public gathering space – drawing residents and visitors year-round.
In three years that idea has gone from a vision to the opening of newly-built facilities.
The anchor of activity within the redevelopment area is the City of High Point’s $36.1 million multi-use stadium, which opened in May 2019. The High Point Rockers professional baseball team calls that stadium home. The team belongs to the 21-year-old Atlantic League of Professional Baseball, which is an independent professional league. In addition to baseball, the stadium has been designed to accommodate soccer, football, and lacrosse. The multi-use stadium will also host concerts, festivals, and other community activities. The facility has seating for 4,400. With standing room, the stadium can accommodate more than 5,000 attendees.
Surrounding the stadium will be more than $80 million worth of newly-constructed properties – public plaza, offices, restaurants, retail shops, a hotel, an events center, children’s museum, residential properties, and mixed-use properties. High Point University President Nido Qubein has raised a considerable amount of money from philanthropic donors for many of those features.
In addition to those planned initiatives, companies and developers are also preparing to open facilities in the redevelopment area. To encourage this growth, two downtown Opportunity Zones have been established, giving investors added incentive to participate in High Point’s growth and the City of High Point is following a “small-scale manufacturing” plan of action to encourage such manufacturing operations in downtown and surrounding areas.
Downtown High Point is special, special because twice each year, downtown hosts more than 75,000 attendees downtown for the High Point Furniture Market, the world’s largest home furnishings trade show. This brings with it multi-millions of dollars in investments in downtown showrooms and multi-use spaces that function beyond market times.
We are also fortunate to have an incubator for furniture makers and designers, which has opened and will be expanding. We have two local colleges that have downtown campuses and a downtown medical campus is High Point’s largest employer with more than 3,300 employees.
All of these assets and attributes give investors a reason to develop a project in downtown High Point and businesses a perfect place to locate and grow.
Thank you to the High Point Economic Development Corporation for providing all of the material used in this article.