The City of Goldsboro won a pair of awards as downtown Goldsboro hosted the North Carolina Main Street Conference Tuesday through Thursday. 

The North Carolina Main Street Conference is the largest statewide downtown revitalization conference in the country. Attendees include downtown economic development professionals, elected officials and local government staff, rural leaders, volunteers, business and property owners, consultants, vendors, and sponsors.

The City of Goldsboro received a 2023 Award of Merit for Economic Vitality as well as Best Endangered Properties Rescue Effort for the remodeling efforts on the View at Wayne National. 

Goldsboro also received a 2023 Award of Merit for Promotion and Best Downtown Special Event or Event Series for Freedom Fest. 

Liza Govan received a “Main Street Champion” award for her efforts with the Downtown Goldsboro Development Corporation to bring revitalization and ongoing growth to downtown Goldsboro. 

The View at Wayne National project began in 2015 with six unused, underutilized, and vacant buildings, located at two 100% corners in downtown Goldsboro. 200, 204, and 206 East Walnut Street, 102 South John Street, and 135 and 139 West Walnut Street comprised six buildings – four historic and two non-historic properties, that totaled nearly 70,000 square feet. Some were vacant for a decade, others much longer.

Wayne County owned four of the buildings and vacated three of them in 2014 and 2015. The county planned to raze them to yield a total of twelve parking spaces.

The Downtown Goldsboro Development Corporation worked with the City of Goldsboro to build a case to have the properties donated to the City and for the government agencies to share in the cost of repairing the roofs if the nonprofit Main Street program could not find a developer within a certain time period. The two other properties were privately owned.

The Downtown Goldsboro Development Corporation identified an economic development strategy in 2017 to become an urban lifestyle center and protect downtown Goldsboro’s primary asset – their historic built stock, and the board of directors developed a plan to reduce nonproductive, uninhabitable space by 20,000 square feet by 2019.

Also, in 2017, the nonprofit leadership met and began conversations with Patrick Reilly with Rehab Development about the vacant properties.

There were several years of negotiations and contract versions between the developer and the City of Goldsboro that were organized by Downtown Goldsboro Development Corporation, in addition to initiating the local advocacy to reinstate the state historic tax credit program by preparing resolutions allowing the city and county to officially support the program, press releases, white pages, and communications with General Assembly representatives.

The City of Goldsboro donated the property to Downtown Goldsboro, and they formed an LLC to allow the successful handoff of properties and they acquired the services of an appraisal for several of the properties that resulted in a zero value, creating an easy transfer to the developer.

The Main Street program prepared the Part One Historic Preservation Tax Credit applications and the State Historic Landmark applications on behalf of the project. Landmark status provides a 50% baseline of property tax in perpetuity.

The City and County also provided the developer with a $310,000 dollar sliding tax-base grant over ten years. -Additionally, the City provided a performance based, forgivable loan of $300,000, paid out in $100,000 payments upon construction benchmark completions.

Once the agreement was reached, Downtown Goldsboro facilitated joint meetings to make the rehabilitation construction process run smoothly with the interdepartmental policies, codes, regulations, and expectations.

Dunn and Dalton Architects designed the project to meet the Secretary of the Interior’s Standards for Rehabilitation in order to utilize the federal and state historic tax credit programs.

Facades were maintained, roofs were replaced or repaired, bank vaults, staircases, and interior office doors were incorporated into the design, and windows, floors, masonry, and decorative architectural features were cleaned, repaired, preserved, and protected.

Throughout construction, Downtown Goldsboro celebrated and drew attention to the project with tours, social media, presentations, and articles.

Rehab Development completed the project in May 2022, investing nearly $14,000,000 and creating 63 residential units with a mix of studio, one and two-bedroom units, and one three-bedroom unit, space for offices, home for the Arts Council of Wayne County, space for retail shops and nonprofits, and six furnished extended stay long term units that support Seymour Johnson Airforce Base.

The investment generates $88,000 in monthly income and is expected to generate $1.1 million in annual income in 2024. The tax base increased by more than 1,300% from $684,000 to more than $7,000,000 in tax valuation.

North Carolina Freedom Fest is a military and first responders appreciation festival designed to bring those groups together with the community to thank those who serve, in a family-friendly setting in Downtown Goldsboro.

This family-friendly event includes a car and bike show, an art contest, craft vendors, a kid’s zone, food trucks, static displays, an F-15 flyover, military appreciation awards, and live music performed by five bands on two stages.

Freedom Fest embraces the “One Community Model” which brings together a group of partners including the NC Freedom Fest non-profit, the City of Goldsboro, Seymour Johnson Airforce base, Downtown Goldsboro Development Corporation, United Way, Goldsboro Rotary, the Elks, Wayne County Chamber of Commerce, the Military Affairs Committee, Kriquette’s Kids, corporate sponsors, and a network of volunteers that work together to host the event.

In 2022 Freedom Fest received the United States Department of Defense, Spirit of Hope award for the event. Each branch of the military makes one nomination worldwide. This event attracts an average attendance of 11,500 generates $166,000 dollars in merchant sales and an economic impact of $400,000 dollars.