6/13/05

Residents Invited to Design Downtown Holly Springs

Holly Springs residents are invited to an interactive meeting to participate in the creation of a detailed plan that will guide the future development of downtown Holly Springs. The meeting will be held Wednesday, June 22, from 7-9 p.m. at the Hunt Community Center.

Although Holly Springs already has a development plan that guides the Town's growth, this Village District Area Plan will be specifically for downtown Holly Springs and will be more detailed than the Town-wide development plan.

“We're excited about developing this plan because, while Holly Springs has been seeing exponential growth, we don't have a downtown district where people can say, ‘This is downtown Holly Springs,'” said Gina Bobber, director of the Planning & Zoning Department that is heading the project. “This plan is our opportunity to create a downtown.”

Guiding the Community Visioning Meeting will be the consultants hired by the Town to develop the plan. The lead consultant will be LandDesign of Charlotte. Other consultants at the meeting will include representatives from Kimley-Horn and Warren & Associates. In addition, Town staff from the Planning, Engineering and Economic Development departments will be on hand.

Bobber said the meeting will be interactive. Similar meetings have included surveys of residents in attendance. The residents are shown a visual of a building style, gateway feature or open space. The residents then have a few seconds to respond to the image and indicate whether the image is something they would like to see in downtown Holly Springs. Other similar meetings supply residents with maps and markers, then break up residents into groups for brainstorming sessions.

“This meeting is going to be hands-on,” Bobber said. “Residents shouldn't come to sit and listen; they should come to participate!

“I think with Town Hall, and the new library and cultural center, we're going to have some great public facilities downtown,” she added. “We need our residents to participate to make this a great destination point for people not just in Holly Springs but in our region.”

For additional information about the meeting, contact the Planning & Zoning Department at (919) 557-3908.

Town of Holly Springs - PO Box 8 - 128 South Main Street - Holly Springs, NC 27540 - (919) 552-6221 - Holly.Springs@hollyspringsnc.us