In a downtown Canton alleyway, a rusty junction box juts out awkwardly from the sidewalk, long since abandoned to its purpose, while a few yards away broken bricks, orange traffic barrels and twisted lengths of caution tape lay in a heap atop a few pieces of old plywood. On the side of one building, a bright blue tarp hangs crookedly, covering pieces of exposed structure, with bricks on strings dangling precariously from its edges.

But this is not a construction site. This is what town officials call Colonial Alley, and its been sitting like this for a year now.

Greg Petty, owner of The Lunchbox, shares a wall with the alley, and he’s tired of patrons wondering what, exactly, he’s up to under that tarp or suspecting him of being closed. He has been asking the town for months now to deal with the disrepair and clutter in the alley.

“We’ve taken every step in the world to try to get it fixed,” he said, including attending town meetings and making specific requests of aldermen and Mayor Pat Smathers, but apparently to no avail.

“We were told that it would be done and it hasn’t been,” said Petty, who notes that he was told in July that work would begin within weeks.

The trouble began in November 2009 when Petty and Wilbur Davis, owner of the other building adjacent to the alley, noticed leakages on the walls they shared with it. The culprit was an outside wall, erected when a former storefront was leveled to make way for the alley itself. Those outside walls had, over time, begun to crack and separate from the walls of the remaining building, allowing moisture to creep in.

So the city took steps to repair the problem, and began pulling down the outside walls. However, laborers realized halfway in that the problems were deeper and outside their scope of expertise. Instead of being a quick fix, an engineer needed to be summoned, the project bid out and a licensed and experienced contractor would have to take over the job.

And it’s all these extra steps, said Assistant Town Manager Jason Burrell, that have taken much more time than expected.

“This is one of those things that, when you’re a government entity, you have to jump through some hoops,” said Burrell. Where a private citizen or business could see the problem and have it repaired nearly immediately, a government has to take steps to ensure that they’re getting the best deal possible for the taxpayer, he explains.

Burrell said that, after getting a structural engineer’s opinion on what the project actually needed, the town put the project out to bid twice but has had trouble generating interest among contractors who have the right mix of willingness and expertise.

When the town finally received a bid for an acceptable amount from an acceptable contractor, Burrell said that he and Town Manager Al Matthews took it to the aldermen immediately. That bid was approved four weeks ago.

But, said Burrell, when they went to execute the contract and get work going, they again ran into problems.

“We went to do that pretty much the next day, and honestly, we haven’t been able to get up with the contractor,” said Burrell. They called him, sent him a letter, even sent someone to his house, but all to no avail. In essence, that puts the town back at square one.

But to Petty, this doesn’t fly. While he’s concerned with the project’s completion, he said he’s been told several times that a clean-up effort would be taken up immediately. He is still waiting for action.

Matthews agreed that the alley’s appearance was less than ideal.

“It looks bad,” he said. “There’s no doubt it looks like a construction site. But we’re going to get some casual labor, we hope, to pull off the old stucco and start at the top and get the top caps back on, back in place,” which would eliminate the need for the unsightly blue tarp and its fringe of swinging bricks suspended 10 feet off the ground.

Petty said he hopes that’s true, but if no action is taken soon, he intends to climb up himself and at least replace the blue with a clear, more attractive tarp.

“I don’t have a gripe with anyone individually,” Petty said, “but something needs to be done. It needs to be fixed, and I think anyone can see that.”

Canton may be looking toward a new era of revitalization, thanks to a grant from the North Carolina Rural Center. The town was awarded $25,000 earlier this fall for the Step Up Canton program, which will formulate strategies for economic growth and development.

Several candidates have made downtown revitalization the central tenet of their campaign and consider it the one of the most important issues on the town’s agenda. They include Gene Monson, Carole Edwards, and Kenneth Holland.

“When I was growing up, it was a booming, prosperous little town. We have seen that go away. The downtown has kind of dried up,” Holland said.

Holland wants to see a downtown revitalized to look more like the town he once knew. And who wouldn’t?

“All the buildings were full,” Edwards said. “You had drugstores and you had clothing stores. We had a Belk’s on the corner. We had a jewelry store. You could buy a pair of shoes. We had all the things in our town that you would need.”

Canton is not alone in its plight. Small towns across America saw business sucked from their downtowns by strip malls and big-box stores as auto-centric suburban sprawl became the new way of life.

But Edwards thinks there’s hope.

“I really feel like we can bring this town back to life. I know other communities have done it,” Edwards said. “We shouldn’t sit there and say ‘We can’t do this.’ There is always an option out there.”

But others aren’t as optimistic. Several of the old anchor buildings are in the hands of owners who aren’t investing in their upkeep. Charlie Crawford, another candidate, questioned if the town could force the owners to do something with their buildings.

“People have a right to do with their property what they want to do,” Crawford said.

Crawford said the town has tried to create a nurturing atmosphere for revitalization. Crawford pointed to streetscape projects pursued during his tenure, which vastly improved the downtown appearance by burying power lines, installing historic lampposts and beautifying sidewalks and the public realm.

“I think the town has done about all it can do to help the building owners,” Crawford said.

The downtown proponents advocate cracking down on these building owners, however.

“Citizen after citizen after citizen appeals to the board of aldermen about the appearance of downtown. I hear the town say there is nothing we can do. I disagree. There is,” Monson said. “People sit here and say ‘As a property owner you own this and own that.’ But you don’t own it — you are simply a steward of that property.”

The downtown district has been recognized as a National Historic District and the town has a historic preservation committee to oversee it. Monson said the historic status provides a mechanism to compel building owners to take responsibility.

Holland agrees the town needs to more stringently enforce appearance codes for downtown buildings.

Alderman Eric Dills agrees as well.

“We need to require the building owners, most of whom do not live in Canton, to maintain their buildings to an acceptable standard,” Dills said.

Holland said the downtown needs an active merchants’ association to “get everyone pulling together.”

Candidate Jimmy Flynn would like to see a business organization take root in Canton, but said it shouldn’t be limited to the downtown area.

“I hate to think of downtown as an entity in itself,” said Flynn. “I feel like business in Canton is business in Canton, be downtown or anywhere else. I think we are too small a town to identify one little area to be economic development. It needs to be in any area that will accommodate business growth.”

“You can’t just focus on the downtown. You have to focus on the entire town,” candidate Ed Underwood said.

Downtown merchants in Waynesville hope to get a boost in customers when the Haywood County Historic Courthouse throws open its doors to the public Monday, June 29, following a two-year renovation.

Main Street shops lost frequent customers when courthouse construction forced county employees to relocate to temporary offices outside the downtown area. Come lunch time, they were far more likely to patronize the fast food joints along the commercial Russ Avenue corridor than supporting downtown merchants.

That will all change this week. Nearly 50 full-time employees will return to occupy office space in the newly renovated courthouse.

“I much prefer being downtown and able to walk on Main Street,” said Assistant Register of Deeds Becca Cedron, who said the Main Street location is the part of the move she’s most looking forward to. “It’s more convenient.”

Downtown merchants are equally enthused about the return of potential customers. The move could boost area business at a time when shops are feeling the effects of the economy.

“I’m very excited they’re coming back,” said Cary Turman, manager of Smoky Mountain Roasters. “I think it will greatly increase our lunch, and I maybe hope to see them grab coffee before they come to work in the morning.”

Chris Williams, manager of O’Malley’s, also hopes to intercept the increased traffic flow. Williams already sees a flood of lunch-time customers from the Justice Center, next door to the historic courthouse. He hopes county employees will stop by both for lunch and maybe for an after work beverage.

Meanwhile, the new town office building nearing completion on Main Street will bring even more workers to downtown Waynesville. Half a dozen town employees who have been squirreled away in off-site offices will be returning to work on Main Street by August.

The police department will also take up residence in the new building after a hiatus during construction. While the bulk of positions in the police department are patrol officers assigned to the road, at least half a dozen police personnel with administrative and management roles will add to the full-time downtown workforce.

“Economically, downtown will certainly benefit,” said Town Manager Lee Galloway. People working outside downtown are forced to climb in their cars for their lunch break, and once behind the wheel, “you think, ‘Well, I don’t want to drive downtown and find a parking place,’” Galloway said.

But when stationed downtown, the inverse is true “not just for the restaurants but it will be easy for them to walk to any of the other stores on Main Street,” Galloway said. Between the town and county workers, the foot traffic of 60 new people can’t be a bad thing.

In addition to the tangible bump in commerce, Galloway said keeping civic functions downtown are vital to maintaining a vibrant, working Main Street. That theory was one of the leading arguments in keeping county offices and the courthouse downtown in the first place. The county became embroiled in a bitter debate eight years ago when deciding whether to keep county offices downtown. Town leaders actively joined the voices of those lobbying to keep it on Main Street.

Want to build anything you want in a downtown location that receives a ton of visitors each summer? Then Bryson City, with its total lack of rules governing development, is just the place for you.

By Michael Beadle

When Waynesville Town Manager Lee Galloway meets fellow town managers from across the state, he inevitably hears his counterparts say, “Your town looks great. What’s your secret?”Without a beat, Galloway replies, “Let me give you a phone number and a name.”

Downtown Sylva is a special place. The events of the last couple of months only reinforce that fact, and so the momentum to create a better, closer and more unified business community should continue.

Downtown Sylva Association members have voted unanimously to hire an executive director, setting the organization up to more actively advocate for the downtown community.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

Most business and property owners have reacted positively to a Downtown Sylva Association proposal to create a municipal service district that would tax the downtown area to pay for improvements, say DSA officials.

By Sarah Kucharski • Staff Writer

In an effort to heal wounded relationships in the downtown Sylva community, local residents and leaders are uniting to develop an underused area of downtown into an attractive, accessible and functional public park.