news-record.com

One of Eden's historical textile mills could someday house a banjo museum.

A group of developers and local arts supporters hope tourism, boosted by a proposed National Banjo Museum, will replace textiles and tobacco in Rockingham County.

Textiles once fueled the county economy, but outsourcing and mill closings later hurt its towns.

"Communities have to figure out how to reinvent themselves," said Sheldon Balbirer, who leads UNCG's master of business administration program. "Everybody cannot set up wineries, and everybody can't have historical sites. Their question is, what do you do with some of these really neat-looking textile mills?"

At one time, Dennis Sparks of Stoneville and his partners thought they had a potential solution.

When Riverwalk Development bought the Nantucket mill and neighboring mills about three years ago, they planned to install a convention center, restaurants, hotels and artisan work space.

But Sparks said that idea fell flat, due in part to difficulty landing special tax credits.

Meanwhile, a grant from the N.C. Arts Council encouraged Rockingham County-based Piedmont Folk Legacies to begin planning a National Banjo Museum.

Louise Price, president of Piedmont Folk Legacies, said she'd had the mills in mind as a future site for the Charlie Poole Music Festival - held in June at the county fairgrounds - and a museum honoring local music heritage.

Poole was born in what's now Eden. A banjo player in a 1920s band called the North Carolina Ramblers, he spent much of his adult life working in the mills.

Price's idea was to build a complex with banjo exhibits, workshop space, performance areas and a recording studio.

"This is where this should happen, near where Poole walked the Earth," she said. "Our ultimate goal is to make sure that this music and this heritage stays alive."

Last year, Piedmont Folk Legacies began studying the feasibility of turning the Nantucket mill into a banjo museum center. About six months ago, Balbirer brought a group of UNCG master's students on board.

"Part of the question we've been asked to look at is, if we build it, will somebody come?" Balbirer said, adding that they don't yet have answers.

The MBA students, who receive course credit for helping, will study regional festivals and museums such as Kentucky's International Bluegrass Museum to determine whether an Eden center could support itself.

If the UNCG group finds the venture sustainable, it also will help Piedmont Folk Legacies plan the center.

While the students prepare a recommendation, the Riverwalk partners will prepare for development. They recently filed a state brownfields agreement, which frees them and future mill owners from liability for existing contamination.

The agreement gives the mill mixed-use facilities options - including hotels, a convention center, art studios and shops.

Lisa Taber, N.C. Brownfields Program project manager, said she's worked with the partners since 2005, and she must approve all development plans.

Don't expect to visit the museum any time soon. The MBA team's planning could take years, and Balbirer said renovations will cost millions.

"It's really going to be about a two-year project, as far as they're concerned," Price said. "This is not something that we're going to do in six months."

Balbirer said he isn't sure tourism will help Eden's economy. Museums require visitors, and a rural county's banjo music might not draw crowds.

But Paul Kron, regional planning director for the Piedmont Triad Council of Governments, said the combination of several new projects could bring visitors to the county. He touted revitalized downtowns, greenways and nature trails, and a planned horse park that nabbed $2.4 million from the legislature.

"Not any one thing is going to solve the problem of so much industry going offshore," Kron said. "It's a matter of thinking about how all of these pieces fit together into a common vision."

Sparks thinks people should visit the mill, where John Motley Morehead, founder of what's now UNC-Chapel Hill's Morehead-Cain Foundation, formed Union Carbide.

"It would be a shame not to capitalize on all that," Sparks said. "It could really become a hub, a Mecca for generating revenue around here, except for tourism this time, instead of the industrialization it was in its heyday."

Contact Emily Stephenson at 373-7080 or emily.stephenson@news-record.com