Goldsboro shows off preservation strategy

The city of Goldsboro turned out its top brass for a presentation to an entourage from Wilson Wednesday afternoon. Mayor Al King, City Manager Joe Huffman and Police Chief Tim Bell were all on hand as Downtown Goldsboro Development Corp. executive director Julie Thompson presented a series of slides showing Goldsboro's amazing success in turning abandoned properties and vacant lots into taxpaying assets while attracting millions of dollars in private investment.

Preservation of Wilson board members watched the impressive presentation jealously. POW would like to repeat Goldsboro's success in Wilson. One of the keys to their success, the Goldsboro officials said, was having everyone involved, from city staff to city council members to enthusiastic private citizens who are investing in the downtown Goldsboro restoration. If broad support is essential, the turnout Wednesday in the Goldsboro City Hall Annex was not a good omen.

Only one Wilson City Council member — Doris Jones — attended. Mayor Bruce Rose was also there, reiterating his support  for historic preservation. City Manager Grant Goings and city historic preservationist Lu-Ann Monson were there. POW executive director Kathy Bethune had invited all of the Wilson City Council members. Only Jones came; the other six council members missed out on seeing the benefits Wilson's neighboring city has reaped from a philosophy of preserving, reusing and renovating historic properties.

Bethune had also invited Wilson County Manager Ellis Williford and all seven county commissioners. None attended. Wilson County has been indifferent or hostile to historic preservation, so their absence was not surprising.

Thompson and Huffman said that in talking to civic groups about Goldsboro's preservation efforts, they do not talk so much about the public good involved in preserving the city's historic architecture and neighborhoods. What they emphasize are the economic benefits of the program.

Like other cities (including Wilson), Goldsboro had been intent on demolishing abandoned, dilapidated housing. In 2005, the city appropriated $100,000 for demolitions, but the city planner estimated it would cost $1 million to demolish all the boarded-up houses. The shock of that number prompted the city to take a different tack. The city put $100,000 into a revolving fund that would option or buy historic properties and market them to new owners with historic preservation covenants in the deed. Seeing the success, the city added $50,000 to the revolving fund. Downtown Goldsboro Development Corp. marketed the properties through Preservation North Carolina, which options and sells historic properties throughout the state and has had phenomenal success in places such as Edenton Mill Village, where old mill houses worth $26,000 in 1997 are now selling for 10 times that. Scores of essentially worthless properties and vacant lots have now been returned to the tax rolls, generating millions of dollars in taxes.

DGDC and PNC have preserved and sold dozens of houses. DGDC now "controls" (not necessarily owns but has the right to market with protective covenants) 28 houses, Thompson said, just from the city's $150,000 investment. DGDC, a nonprofit tax-exempt corporation, options or buys properties; the city takes no ownership role, although it does pay DGDC's four-person staff.

In addition to preserving historic properties, DGDC has worked with Self-Help Credit Union to build low- to moderate-income "infill" homes on the lots where houses had been demolished. These houses are built from historic designs that complement the existing older homes, creating a consistent neighborhood streetscape. These infill properties have added additional millions in property values on lots that had been essentially worthless.

In 2007-08, Goldsboro's program generated about $6 million in public investment and $10.4 million in private investment, Thompson said. This kind of success has brought statewide attention to Goldsboro, which has restored (with public and private money) the downtown Paramount Theater (which is older than Wilson's Edna Boykin Cultural Center) and the historic city hall. The restoration of City Hall with its rooftop gilded statues and the construction of the City Hall Annex cost Goldsboro about $11 million.

Goldsboro is far from being finished. The old city train station will be restored to its past glory and is to be used as a stop on a planned commuter rail line that will take riders to Raleigh. Center Street, where a railroad track once ran down the middle, is to be renovated to create a broad pedestrian path in the median and wider sidewalks on each side.

In December 2007, my wife and I toured Goldsboro with her father, who had grown up there in the 1920s and '30s, on DGDC's Christmas homes tour. The restored private homes gave me some insight into what a good historic preservation program can do. Wednesday's presentation explained the finances and administration of this effort.

The Wilson participants at Wednesday's presentation were impressed and enthusiastic. It seems obvious that this strategy is transportable, that it can work in other places, including Wilson. The key, as several Goldsboro speakers emphasized, is getting public officials behind it. As Mayor King warned, "Don't listen to the nay-sayers." He said he had been repeatedly told that the city should "just bulldoze" the historic City Hall, but city management and elected officials ignored the vocal minority. City Hall's restored grandeur and the annex's seamless connection to the old building proves the nay-sayers wrong.

Wilson has a similar stock of historic buildings and vacant lots that Goldsboro has. Wilson can do what Goldsboro has done, if public officials get behind it. Unfortunately, the solitary Wilson City Council member (one out of seven) who attended Wednesday's presentation does not bode well for Wilson's capability.