Rosemary Street in downtown Chapel Hill has a lot of untapped potential and is already a vibrant intersection for students and permanent residents (including long-time residents of the historically African American Northside neighborhood). The Town of Chapel Hill Economic Development Office and the Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership have teamed up to create a new process they are calling 'Rosemary Imagined,' which they are promoting as "an innovative community-led process to refine our thinking of how Rosemary Street fits into the development and growth of Downtown Chapel Hill."
They have developed a Neighborhood Project Team to drive the initial process. The Neighborhood Project Team represents 14 interest areas including residents, students, business owners, property owners, customers/consumers (that's what I am representing), and neighborhood organizations including the Jackson Center and Empowerment, Inc. We are tasked with talking to members of our interest group about what they hope for Rosemary Street and coming back as a team to share those ideas on May 14th. Following this process, open community events wil be held over the summer to talk about the various ideas and allow community members to share more ideas and use an engaged process to vote on favorite ideas.
Most likely in the fall, Rosemary Street will be dotted with chalkboards posing questions, a la NeighborLand, about what passers-by would like to see on Rosemary Street. The ideas from the open events and the chalkboard activities will be compiled and a report presented to the Chapel Hill Town Council.
Rosemary Imagined has a website for more information.
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