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South Elm/Lee Street you say? Nothing screams brilliance quite like building a 200 room, $47 million dollar luxury hotel in the hood. If that is not a Jeffic Fail, then I don't know what is.

I support it, and it is not in the middle of the hood. It is across the street from downtown, and in the area that they are redeveloping. We need jobs, and this will be something that will create new jobs. The fact that the city will not have to pay for it is more incentive to build it. They are also building the new education building in the same area, so it is necessary to support that building for conventions and conferences that will be held there. Maybe the other hotels downtown will do some upgrades, so more people will stay downtown. I know plenty of people who visit the area who stay near the airport, Wendover, or High Point Rd. because there is nothing nice downtown. Downtown needs to be spruced up, and this is one way to do it.

Jeff, I'm not saying that I'm for or against the idea, but you are wildly mistaken by calling the proposed location "the hood."

Ryan Shell

using taxpayer money (federal bonds) to build a hotel that MIGHT create 100 permanent hotel jobs? add another $8,000,000 from the City for a parking deck and retail space? this is ridiculous

I think this hotel can be successful here.You know why? Because another "upscale" development a block a way (Southside) has become a success story. Thats right Southside was part of the so called "questionable area" and today there are shops and tomehomes that sell for as much as $500,000. So don't judge an area just because its near a street named Martin Luther King Jr Drive folks.

To all of you that say it is not the hood you are correct, but if you turn the corner and look around you may see one of the biggest "hood" projects in the state and then go down Lee St. east about another mile and you'll see another "hood" project. It might not be the hood but it is sandwiched in between two.

Has anyone ever seen the homless that wash their clothes in the Southside fountain? Are that has beaten the odds but isn't without its problems or crime.

question...why are people calling it the hood anyway? is it because a lot of black people live in the area and thats the reason a hotel shoudnt be built here? I know of other areas in the city where crime is increasing where white people live and those areas are not called "the hood"

Where, because I want to know these places as well! It also has nothing to do with race.

By the way, projects like Southside and this upscale hotel are known as Urban Renewal. IF people are sooo concerned about the less fortunate that live in the area they would be concerned that this is a systematic approach to help raise property taxes in the area and push out the monetarily less fortunate.

yea but "the hood" is racially toned. As I stated before, the success of Southside proves the skeptics wrong. Southside was not only a part of a questionable area, its across the street from the South Elm/Lee site. Southside is a neighborhood where middle to upper income white people have bought homes and townhomes near a street called Martin Luther King Jr Dr. But the neighborhood also includes African-Americans and African-American businesses. So these projects are not pushing certain groups out of the neighborhood.

Middle Class? I think the cheapest and this is being very gracious is 250K. If that is middle class then I am extremely poor. It hikes up taxes in the area so that monetarily less fortunate people have to move b/c they can't afford property taxes. Look it up, Urban Renewal. By the way I didn't say black I said monetarily less fortunate which also means white, hispanic, asian etc.

You couldn't pick a worse location if you tried..if there wasn't govt money involved this location would never be chosen.

http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=lee+street,+...

We always complain about new development. The education building is being built in the same area which will bring jobs, this hotel bring jobs, and other businesses that will want to move to that area will bring jobs. Stop being shortsighted and ignorant of the facts. This will do more for the city than the Aquatic Center that has a running cost to a coliseum that is consistently in the red and in need of repairs. We need to grow as a city, and sorry but I think it is a good idea. Yeah there are homeless people over there, because there are two shelters on Eugene St. The reason we have so many homeless people is because there are no jobs, and a lot of businesses will not give those people jobs because they do not have homes, or because they look a certain way. How else do you expect them to not be homeless if you will not give them jobs? This is our council actively seeking out new development and jobs, and I totally support it. What some of you call the hood are where there are schools, children, and hardworking people who take pride in their homes. I am sorry that it could not be put on Friendly where some of you would like, but I am happy it is happening and I hope it goes forward. Southside is a success story, and I hope any new development that will create more jobs for the area moves forward. Greensboro is going to grow, and some places we never thought will get things that they never had. Eastern and Southern parts of Greensboro are going to continue to get new development because that is where the people are, and where there is need for economic development.

Also, getting back to the Aquatic Center. There are a lot of you supporting that, and if we used your logic it isn't a good project either because it is along High Point Rd. and Lee St. Both have seen increased violence and crime, and it would not be good for them to build that because of the crime in that area. People are forgetting about the research park being built on East Lee St. that will bring new jobs, and whenever the loop is finished it will go around areas that are seen as high crime areas. There will be new schools, new businesses, and new homes built all over this city. Crime increases as population and poverty increases, which is why we need jobs to curb that activity.

This area has been slated for redevelopment for years, so the question of whether this is a good spot for redevelopment is moot. It's going to happen. It will bring added density and vibrancy to the downtown area. It is a good place for a hotel in that it is easy to get to from either direction on I-40, it will provide a solid anchor to the south part of town, much like the Marriott does for the north part of Elm St. There is a tremendous amount of proposed development and interest in this area of downtown. Throw in the revitatlized Hight Pt. Rd/Lee St. corridor, the Coliseum less than a mile away and the new Nanoscience campus less than two miles away and you will see success. Now, as to whether the current hotel proposal works out will hinge more on its design, its price point and how it is managed and not on its location. Naysayers should get out of the way...

I decided to revisit this post and the comments have made me shake my head.

I’m the HOA President for Southside, the award winning neighborhood that is in close proximity to the land that will eventually be developed.

Southside has a tremendous amount of foot traffic from both residents and business patrons – it’s a very safe community. Given its unique location, residents are aware that there will be folks walking through the neighborhood that don’t live there.

And for those that can’t/don’t remember, Southside used to be a prominent crack/prostitution location in Greensboro. It, in no way, was desirable. Someone had the vision to create something great – they built it and residents came.

I’ve lived in the neighborhood for 4.5 years at this point, and it’s simply a wonderful place to live. The neighborhood has a very diverse residential/business makeup so the thought of it being for only one group is simply not true. The area that is considered “Southside” has single family homes, condos, townhomes and a large apartment complex.

Furthermore, I’ve also adopted the section of Lee St that borders the proposed development. I’m very familiar with its surroundings and it’s far from what I’d consider “the hood.” Just because a part of town doesn't look like what you may be used to doesn't make it the hood.

It’s also worth noting that those that live/play in downtown tend to have a different view than those living in the “suburbs.” Simply ask someone that lives downtown about parking versus someone that doesn’t live downtown. You’ll get two completely different answers – primarily due to education (meaning knowledge of parking locations) and the fact that there are different expectations.

This part of downtown will one day thrive – I’d put money on that.

Ryan Shell

PS - I'm more than happy to give anyone a walking tour of the area. You might just find yourself saying, "I had no idea all of this was here."