RFP Staff
♦Salisbury’s city council and city manager’s office have done little to advance economic growth and jobs here save for speeding up the red tape process with a one-stop shop for more adventuresome businesses. The larger more formidable barriers to business and retail are an almost impregnable great wall stopping many businesses cold. In major retail, in the last few years here, we’ve witnessed a few lateral moves across the city like Big Lots, and before long Belk. Penny’s will end its stint here after many years and close its doors. Penny’s is not coming back. Panera Bread, a moderately priced soup, salad and sandwich chain restaurant will open its doors next Tuesday on East Innes. The downside of Panera’s opening is that it will no doubt attract many lunchtime regulars away from our beleaguered Main Street eateries. One step forward, one step back.
Before discussing the major barriers to business, industry and retail in Salisbury lets look at three giants. When any major business or retail scouts our city they check the databases for Salisbury’s very important stats on crime, education, and poverty. Salisbury scores extremely poorly on all three. When scouts examine the FBI’s crime database for our city, they immediately see very dangerous urban area. Per capita crime levels here are major in both violent and property crime.
An review of public education here in Salisbury is dispiriting. The 2012 NC ABC Report Card demonstrates our Rowan-Salisbury Schools to be in the bottom 20% in statewide school systems. This low performance is occurring in state lowly ranked in education. Worse yet the schools inside of Salisbury’s city limits are the very worst performing schools the in Rowan-Salisbury School system. Not only are Salisbury schools poor performing–their upper grades are plagued by behavioral problems, drugs, and gang activity.
Added to the crime and poor public education opportunities here, is the ugly fact that 22.4% of Salisbury’s residents live below the poverty line. That’s a large indicator of urban death. These giants cast enough of a long shadow to keep many business, industry, and retail scouts from investigating further. Can you blame them?
Now let’s look at the city’s other array of hurdles for business and retail.
The downtown merchants stranglehold monopoly on Main Street. The NIMBY front here does an extremely good job of chasing away any chain competition and customers who prefer to do their shopping in more value laden and desirable chain stores. Many in our city may dine and drink downtown, but few shop there. Thus all the vacancies.
Our city appears hell bent on creating even more historic preservation code and regulation barriers to make opening a business more expensive and difficult. Our alleged historic character is often employed to control who sets up business. These codes and regulations ought to be greatly scaled back or we will watch more businesses and potential jobs do an about face and walk away from Salisbury.
Our badly managed city, struggling in the wake of the Fibrant disaster, still has relatively high taxes, utilities, and fees in comparison with other areas. You get less for more here and now our city’s many services are undermanned due steady terminations and “resignations” of city workers.
A few in our city make desperate attempts to create the illusion of Main Street vitality by following a very poorly thought out Downtown Master Plan of “build it and they will come” over-priced buildings. Yet one after another they get rejected. A much unrequired convention center never saw the light of day. The Downtown Central Office on South Main, which promoters tried to foist on the county dime, was struck down by the county commissioners. They had zero interest in being taken to the cleaners by constructing a 10 million dollar Taj Mahal on infill. They gave a resounding no to lining the pockets of a few. Construction in downtown Salisbury has a tradition of costly overruns. Its doubtful the city can run Taj by lenders due to the requirement of a ”No Further Action” letter. And the LGC might not look kindly on this project if it ever lands on their desk.
Lets not forget the bad risk Empire Hotel, a bat habitat, in the heart of decaying South Main. This rotten plumb, in dire need of gutting, was promoted for several years as a possible hotel. Wisely no takers showed up in a city with 50% hotel occupancy. Some suggest keeping the front of this former flophouse and constructing a multi-tiered parking lot behind it for a day, years in the future, when bulldozers work their magic and real retail appears.
Previous articles about the city’s barriers to economic growth:
http://rowanfreepress.com/2012/11/26/the-final-solution-to-the-nimby-question/
http://rowanfreepress.com/2013/06/16/how-salisbury-fares-in-north-carolina-city-ratings/
http://rowanfreepress.com/2012/10/29/house-of-cards-salisburys-decline-and-urban-flight/
