Special to KinstonPress.com
Pride’s River Task Force and NCSU Design Team Set Open Meeting to Gather Public Input
Posted: 7:30 PM EST Thursday February 2, 2006
The community task force established by the Pride of Kinston, Inc. and its partners at North Carolina State University’s College of Design to explore development options along Kinston’s Neuse River waterfront have scheduled a public meeting to obtain local ideas and suggestions.
The public meeting, announced by Kinston’s Waterfront – Now! Task Force co-chairmen Tommy Pressly and Dr. Lyn Turner, will be held at 7 p.m, Feb. 23 at the Neuse Regional Library, 510 N. Queen St.
Under the partnership with NCSU, 14 graduate and upper level students in the College of Design will spend 13 weeks with the Pride task force and Kinston residents to develop a design plan for the city’s waterfront area, according to Celen Pasalar, director of the University’s Downtown Design Studio. The mission is to work with towns of North Carolina from Murphy to Manteo. Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture Kofi Boone will lead the students in their study and recommendations.
The partnership between Pride and the College of Design was recommended to NCSU by Tammy Kelly, head of NCSU’s Lenoir County Cooperative Extension.
“The goal of the partnership is to leverage the Neuse River for community economic development, and connect the river to the day-to-day lives of Kinston residents,” according to Pasalar.
“An active, appealing and tourist-friendly waterfront can mean a lot to Kinston’s downtown economy,” said Adrian King, Pride director. “We are very happy to have the outstanding design university in North Carolina as a partner to develop our plans. We believe that a Kinston-friendly Neuse River can grow economic opportunity as well as healthy fish.”
The design team members, along with Boone and Pasalar, were in Kinston Jan. 27 to begin mapping out their schedule of on-site visits. They have already begun extensive research about the Neuse in and around Kinston, as well as examining the experiences of other communities in the South who have undertaken successful riverfront development projects, Boone said. During the Kinston visit, the students spent time exploring the Neuse using canoes provided by the Kinston-Lenoir County Parks and Recreation Department.
The Pride-College of Design partnership was highlighted this week in a presentation to new University of North Carolina System President Erskine Bowles and NCSU Chancellor James Oblinger during their visit Tuesday to the university’s Cunningham Research Station in Kinston. |
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