Stevens: Goldsboro economy improving
By Ethan Smith
Published in News on October 29, 2014 1:46 PM
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News-Argus/MELISSA KEY
City Manager Scott Stevens said he believes there is plenty to be optimistic about in terms of Goldsboro's future.
Goldsboro is steadily growing, city officials say, and the figures, although not spectacular, back up the assertion.
The city's tax base has grown from $1.7 billion in 2004 to $2.2 billion last year, with the figure estimated to be $2.3 billion by the end of this year.
"It's about a 1 percent growth rate," said City Manager Scott Stevens. "I won't say that's great, obviously, but it is growth."
A number of businesses have started up in the city this year, from small restaurants to large chain stores and restaurants, such as Sheetz, Dunham's Sports and Texas Roadhouse. Others are in the process of coming, including Panera Bread and Dick's Sporting Goods.
"Our local economy is good and improving, we see that in our sales tax numbers, in our building permits, in construction project, both public and private," Stevens said. "I won't tell you that its perfect. It isn't where we'd like it to be. It can always be better."
The city's population has declined over the past few years but the population just outside the city has grown and Wayne County's as a whole is on the rise.
To help make the city more attractive, the City Council has focused on projects that will improve the quality of life for residents and hopefully attract people and businesses to the city while reducing crime.
"For the past two years at the council retreat they've set their vision as greenways -- and these are in no particular order in my mind -- but greenways, parks and recreation, downtown development with the caveat of encouraging private investment, and community appearance and cleanup," Stevens said. "I would say they envision a community focused on quality of life. Even though our focus is on downtown that's not to say we aren't doing things throughout the community. I hear all the time, 'Hey, you're doing all this downtown. What are you doing everywhere else?' Well, we have over a million dollars in the Berkeley Boulevard widening project. That's a big deal and it's not in downtown. And there's several hundred thousand dollars about to be invested in the greenway off of New Hope Road."
"Really often in local government it's easy to think, 'Man, what's wrong with this community?'" he said. "Whether it's crime, or utilities falling apart or equipment getting old or employees quitting. What I find when I talk with other managers is that it's going on in their towns, too. Not to say it's OK, but everything here's not bad and it's not just going on here. There are certainly places around us there are having a worse time than we are."
Goldsboro isn't likely to attract many younger people who are looking for a more fast-paced lifestyle, he said, but it is attracting a slightly older demographic that is looking to settle down.
"Is it a great place for that 22-year-old that wants to go out at 10 to a club and come home at 4 in the morning? No it isn't," Stevens said. "We don't have much of that. There are some clubs open that late, but we aren't going to attract that crowd.
"Where we do play in is attracting that 20-to-26 age group -- because young people are important to the vitality of the area going forward -- is when they've gotten through that single life stage they hit a point where when they go out they're ready to come back in at 10 or 11," Stevens said. "I think long term trying to capture that 20-to-26 year old age won't be our niche. That age group is -- a lot of them are going to go to college and experience towns that are bigger and I think that's neat. Some of them are going to grow out of that and come back. Some of them aren't."
Stevens said he does not think the construction of the new U.S. 70 bypass will negatively affect Goldsboro's economy. Most of the everyday traffic on U.S. 70, he said, are residents of Goldsboro or nearby communities coming to the city to work.
"I don't think it's an area that's going to get gone around," he said. "What I've heard from the Department of Transportation is that whatever the current traffic counts on 70 are, they'll dip when you open the bypass, but most of that traffic on 70 is residents. I ride on 70, not everyday, but I'm on it a lot. The DOT would say within 5 to 10 years that traffic on 70 will be what it is today."
Stevens also said people currently traveling on the bypass going other places than Goldsboro don't always stop here and help the economy.
"Most of what will go around us will be the truck traffic that wasn't stopping anyhow, and then your beach traffic, most of which wasn't stopping anyhow," he said. "I don't think most of that crowd is going through Goldsboro and saying 'Oh, let me stop at Walmart and get this, or oh let me stop at Harris Teeter and get this.' That's not what's going on with the traffic that's passing through Goldsboro. I don't want to say none of that is happening and that people from out of town don't shop here, but it isn't the bulk of our economy."
Population levels in the city have dipped from more than 38,000 in 2004 down to just over 35,000 at the end of 2013, with projections showing a continuing downward trend in the coming years.
But while the city's population drops, the county's population grows.
Just under 115,000 people lived in Wayne County in 2004, but by the end of 2013, more than 124,000 people lived in the county.
The city's crime rate is a concern, Stevens admitted, but it is no worse than most any similar sized city in eastern North Carolina, he said.
Numbers provided by the Goldsboro Police Department show crime trending downward over the past three years.
"Perception of crime in our community is an ongoing concern," Stevens said. "Our numbers will say it's actually better, but no matter what the numbers say, if the perception is that there's a lot of crime, then the perception becomes reality for people."