The Wednesday, Oct. 2, town hall meeting of the Greensboro City Council at the Greensboro Regional Realtors Association building at 23 Oak Branch Dr. began with a presentation on Carolina Core.
Stan Kelly, the president of the Piedmont Triad Partnership, showed a video and gave a PowerPoint presentation on Carolina Core, an effort to market the area from Winston-Salem to Fayetteville as one economic development region.
Kelly noted that Carolina Core had begun advertising in business publications in the state and also had signs placed on US 421, which runs down the center of the area being marketed as Carolina Core. As part of the effort, the state is seeking to have US 421 designated a future interstate highway. It would become I-685.
Kelly talked about the four megasites in Carolina Core: the Greensboro-Randolph Megasite, the Chatham-Siler City Advanced Manufacturing Site, the Moncure Megasite and the Piedmont Triad International Aerospace Megasite. Kelly said that success with one will benefit the entire Carolina Core region.
He said that hundreds of millions of dollars had already been invested in the four megasites.
He said that this was a long-term project and would not likely see results in a year or in two years, but the goal was to bring 50,000 new jobs to the entire area in the next 20 years.
Kelly compared the Carolina Core in its first year to Research Triangle Park when it was first getting started, and noted that the Research Triangle had played a major role in the explosive economic development in that region.
He also noted that Charlotte had also experienced explosive growth and now the Carolina Core was marketing the area in the middle between the two economic drivers in the state.
Kelly said that, with Carolina Core, the area was united into one economic development engine. Kelly said, “A win in Winston is a win in Greensboro and a win in Greensboro is a win in Winston.”
Kelly said that although they realized that attracting new jobs in small numbers was important, they were looking for something “transformational.”
Mayor Nancy Vaughan said, “I think it’s a really good marketing campaign. It will bring our profile up much higher and we appreciate the extra marketing bang that we’ll get.”
