The City of High Point will host a Thursday, Dec. 16 event at 2 p.m. celebrating a nearly $20 million RAISE Grant that’s been awarded to the city by the US Department of Transportation.
Everyone is invited to the festivities that will take place at the High Point Public Library Arts and Education Plaza.
The event will highlight the “High Point on the RISE” project. That project, which will use funds from the grant, is designed to “enhance equitable access to public investments and community assets, spur transit-oriented economic development, and provide a safe, sustainable, and active route of transportation for walking, bicycling, and micro-mobility.”
In recent years, High Point has been doing a great deal to increase “walkability” in the city. That’s displayed in its downtown renovation strategies as well as its greenway projects.
Federal and state officials participating in the new project will attend the Dec. 16 celebration along with relatively new High Point City Manager Tasha Logan Ford and Mayor Jay Wagner.
The event is free and open to the public.
According to a press release announcing the event, “The urban multimodal greenway and streetscape project will connect lower-income communities of color in southwest High Point to the City’s mass transit facilities and other essential services like the Wake Forest Baptist Health High Point Medical Center, High Point Public Library, the High Point Greenway, new commercial development and new recreation destinations like the new $35 million Truist Stadium.”
That stadium, where the High Point Rockers play baseball, has been central to High Point’s massive downtown makeover.
The new project will also connect two elementary schools, a half dozen public parks, a rec center, two large Boys and Girls Clubs and 12 historic mills.
The project includes parts of Southwest Heritage Greenway – a shared-use path linking downtown transit and train terminals with community parks and redevelopment areas. In addition, it will also include High Point’s North Elm Street Streetscape.
Also, as part of the project, the Sunset Drive/Montlieu Avenue segment will get a north-side side path, that will ultimately connect to Blain Street and the High Point Greenway at Armstrong Park.
When finished, the project, combined with previous enhancements, will create a 16-mile-long active transportation and recreation corridor in the city.
