SILER CITY — Town of Siler City and WithersRavenel held their second Downtown Streetscape Community Engagement Event at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, June 28, to present the Siler City community with options to renovations coming to downtown Siler City in the next years.
The first community engagement event took place in mid-March and solely focused on hearing from the community about what they needed, Senior Project Manager Daniel Whatley of WithersRavenel said.
“We hadn't drawn a single line on a single piece of paper at that point,” he said. “We really just wanted to hear from you guys [the community] first.”
This time, at their second community engagement meeting, the courtroom at City Hall was filled with poster boards, interactive maps and stickers for community members choose design preferences of benches and street lights, among other details, and to draw possible options for a park.
WithersRavenel, hired by the town to prepare the master plan and parking study, explained the possible changes going on, notably with improving sidewalks, crosswalks, storefronts and parking, as well as improving roads, and potentially making parts of Chatham and Birch Avenues one-way streets, Whatley said.
All of these improvements are to “promote economic development, more successful businesses, and to plan for growth, because as everybody knows, growth is coming to every town, especially Siler City,” he said.
There were around 17 community members in attendance, and by the end of the meeting, the poster boards had round, blue stickers on them indicating preferences, and a makeshift playground drawn onto a portion of land where a park could be in downtown Siler City.
Both Town of Siler City Community Development Director Jack Meadows and Whatley emphasized the importance of community input and involvement.
While this meeting was the last of the Downtown Streetscape Community Engagement Events, a survey — available in both English and Spanish — is available for community members to fill out.
From now until the end of this year, a master plan and parking study will be written up and reviewed by town staff, Meadows said. WithersRavenel and the town will submit it to the Siler City Town Board of Commissioner for approval to adopt it.
After that, it can be implemented — not during 2023 — following implementation steps outlines in the plan.