COG Comprehensive Annual Financial Report

Adjacent to First National Bank Field, a $17 Million, 6-story office building, currently named “Project Slugger”, has been proposed by a group of Triad developers. The building will be integrated into the ballpark’s entrance and overlook the stadium. The Greensboro Grasshoppers baseball team will own a portion of the project, and the building will maintain many of the thematic elements of the ballpark. Retail space will be available on the first floor along with approximately 65,000 square feet of office space. The project is expected to be completed in late 2019.

Also next to the baseball park, a 196-unit apartment complex and a 68-unit luxury apartment complex opened within the past five years. Further supplementing this existing housing, an approximate $70 million large-scale mixed-use project, Carroll at Bellemeade, is currently underway. The development will include 290 upscale apartments and a 110 room, six-story mid-market Hyatt Place Hotel. The hotel will be within walking distance of Center City Park, LeBauer Park and the planned Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts. The first of three apartment buildings on the site is expected to open in late 2018. In addition to the Hyatt Place Hotel that will be

part of the Carroll at Bellemeade mixed use project, another three hotels are being planned for the downtown Greensboro area. CN Hotels has begun site clearing for a 120-room Hampton Inn & Suites near the governmental plaza at 332 S. Greene Street. Starwood Hotels has also confirmed plans for a new 180-room Westin Hotel at 203 S. Elm Street to be completed in 2020 and has future plans for a new, 150-room Aloft Greensboro Hotel at 201 N. Eugene Street. To accommodate heightened demand for more downtown parking, the City is working to secure two new City owned and operated parking decks. The first is an estimated $30 million, 850-space parking deck on February One Place, with an overhead walkway connecting to the proposed Westin Hotel. The City is also working on a plan to purchase property from Guilford County and construct a new parking deck adjacent to First National Bank baseball park and the proposed Project Slugger office building. This roughly $20 million deck would provide an additional 1,000 parking spaces. The debt on these projects will be paid with revenue generated from parking fees and property/sales taxes generated from new downtown development of approximately $170 million. Many of these downtown developments are along Greensboro’s Greenway, a “linear park” that will allow residents to walk or bike safely across the city. This greenway, part of Greensboro’s Parks and Recreation Master Plan, is a 4 mile downtown pedestrian and cycling loop, to be funded through public-private partnership. The greenway will connect to over 100 miles of existing and 460 miles of planned greenways throughout the area, serving as the hub of the greenway system. Construction costs are estimated at $36 million, with approximately $10 million in private donations and $26 million in public funds from both local bond referendums and state and federal funding. Portions of Phase I and Phase III of the loop are open with other Phases either under construction or in design. The full project is expected to be completed by 2020. Economic development studies related to greenway projects in Charlotte and Apex, North Carolina and in other states have shown that property values in close proximity to a greenway or park were valued higher and homes in these areas were reported to sell quicker. The greenways have also contributed to increases in adjacent commercial investment and real estate absorption, which the Greensboro Greenway is already experiencing.

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