Despite the economic hits Winston-Salem has taken this year, those who've worked hard to make downtown revitalization a reality aren't letting up. They've got the right idea. The economic blows are all the more reason to press ahead with downtown revitalization -- because it's already bringing economic development to the area.
Lively downtowns enhance an area's quality of life, and draw in new companies, residents and visitors. To slack up on revitalization would allow other cities to rake business away from Winston-Salem.
Fortunately, leaders in the Winston-Salem effort realize that they have to work all the harder at revitalization. Groups such as the Downtown Winston-Salem Partnership and Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, the Baltimore group doing the Piedmont Triad Research Park expansion, keep plugging away. "We think it is important to get some excitement and energy here with some real work," Bill Struever, the president of the company, said during a recent visit to the research park.
Coming from somebody else, those words might just be platitudes. But Struever Bros. has made projects work in Baltimore, Durham and other cities. The company has some solid plans, among them plans for quality living space for affordable rates -- which is certainly needed downtown.
Let's hope this project, and others downtown, succeed. We need revitalization now more than ever.
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