news-record.com

GREENSBORO — The Weaver Foundation has commissioned a group of architecture students from UNC-Charlotte to play a game of “what if.”

The assignment: look at a three-block area in the downtown cultural district, including property owned by the foundation, and figure out what buildings should go where.

“I’m sure they will propose some things that we are opposed to,” said Skip Moore, the foundation’s president. “But the beauty of this is that it will put all sorts of ideas into public discussion.”

Foundation leaders told the students their plans should relocate the Greensboro Cultural Center and the YWCA, preserve the historic part of the old News & Record building, extend YWCA Place from Church Street to Davie Street, extend Lyndon Street from East Market Street to East Friendly Avenue and include a carousel on the Weaver property next to the Greensboro Children’s Museum.

“Those were the givens,” said Sandra Grzemski, a graduate student from Charlotte.

From there the students were on their own.

“We told them to let their imaginations work,” Moore said. “I am hoping that 14 students blue skying will stretch all our imaginations.”

Meeting with downtown arts, museum and development officials, the students made their first report Monday afternoon. They pitched 14 plans in about an hour.

Several proposed a new community arts center with a 500-seat theater.

Some designed a new YWCA and an arts center in the same complex.

One student included the carousel, a project of the Greensboro Rotary Club, inside a new arts center.

Another included “an outdoor room” across from Center City Park and a 20-story high rise where the arts center stands.

One turned the old News & Record building at Davie Street and Friendly Avenue into housing or office space.

Several include new parking decks in their plans, but surrounded them with housing, arts space or the YWCA.

“There were really no constraints,” said Deb Ryan, associate professor of architecture and urban design at UNCC, who led the students through the process. “They said be provocative.”

Ryan also said the students wanted feedback.

Why didn’t the plans include shops and restaurants?

“All of us thought about that,” said one of the students, Stephen Salazar, explaining that downtown already has lots of places to eat. “It’s need-based thing.”

But when Moore said that carousels in other cities attracted between 400,000 and 500,000 visitors a year, the students nodded their heads in understanding.

When April Harris, president of Action Greensboro, explained that their plans needed space for delivering goods, hiding trash collectors and dropping off school groups, the students nodded again.

They will make their final reports next month.

“I’m very impressed with this,” Moore said after the fast-paced presentation, “even though it was kind of like being fed with a firehose.”

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com