The North Carolina Main Street and Rural Planning Center has selected six cities to receive help to revitalize their downtown areas. Those selected literally span the entire state.
Murphy and Manteo made the list says Director Liz Parham.
“We’ve just never had any applications for quite that far west or quite that far east until now,” says Parham.
These two towns - Murphy at the western tip of the state and Manteo on North Carolina’s eastern edge on the Atlantic Ocean - were chosen along with Graham, Mebane, Pilot Mountain and Zebulon to receive three years of technical assistance to help strategically plan downtown improvements. Parham says the Center will work to help each town figure out how to highlight its best assets. Parham says for example that Murphy has more historic architecture and Manteo is newer with a different style:
“Manteo has the water and Murphy has the mountains so again, both of those great natural assets are huge draws for both the areas and regions in the state,” says Parham.
Parham thinks Murphy might have wanted to get onboard after seeing the work that the Planning Center did in nearby Hayesville. Part of a project - started in 2013 - turned the Hayesville Courthouse into an event space. Staff from the Center will head out to Murphy later this month to start work.
