Opinion

LIGHTNING EDITORIAL: The right move on Seventh Avenue

By Bill Moss, Published: March 4, 2014

The birth pains of a new governance for Historic Seventh Avenue District were on display Monday night when city leaders and the existing Seventh Avenue board met to talk about the future.

By July 1 a new advisory committee appointed by and reporting to the Hendersonville City Council will help guide development of the district, which for many years has been a ragged strip of vacant and distressed properties clinging to a thin reed of prosperity thanks to a patchwork of strong survivors and promising startups.
The turnout Monday night signaled that this was no ordinary meeting. It included City Council members Steve Caraker and Ron Stephens, City Manager John Connet and Downtown Economic Development Director Lew Holloway. Connet was there to explain the process that the city staff plans to carry out under the council's direction. It will sharpen the focus on Seventh Avenue in an effort to spark revitalization. Consultants from the Institute of Government at UNC at Chapel Hill this week launched their evaluation of the district this week. The study, funded by the City Council, will look at property values, property transactions, current usage and the zoning. Then the consultants will try to forecast some possibilities for redevelopment. They could connect willing investors and the city for some major redevelopment. It's a good thing.
A few Seventh Avenue advocates have questioned the city's commitment. Their doubts are understandable, if misplaced. The new strategy has proven track record. In a very similar process, the City Council forced the dissolution of the old Downtown Hendersonville Inc. and put Main Street revitalization efforts under the auspices of the city. The effort paid off big time. The council has been acutely focused on Main Street as an economic engine. It has spent more money. Downtown promotions, marketing and events are better coordinated than ever. Property owners, merchants, shoppers, diners and tourists have been the winners.
Now the city has launched the same model for Seventh Avenue.
"I think the success of the way the transfer was done on Main Street is what we're talking about here," Stephens said. "It's been very successful."
Everyone wants a new dawn on Seventh Avenue, one with shops, restaurants, pedestrians and safe sidewalks, one without blight and boarded up storefronts.
The future will bring new things and maybe the unexpected. But the key is the revival of something old — before Seventh Avenue was cut off from Main Street by two busy one-way streets. The City Council has taken an important first step in trying to rebuild that crucial connection. Seventh Avenue and Main Street, city leaders are saying, are parts of that one important part of Hendersonville that we call downtown.