Saturday ~ November 23rd ~ Bridge Painting!!

The city of Salisbury Street Division and Historic Salisbury Foundation members and volunteers will team up on Saturday, November 23 from 9 a.m. to noon to paint two bridges located in historic districts near downtown.  If you can come help, please do. This might be something children would enjoy....For years to come, every time you cross the bridge, your child would say, "I painted this bridge!"

The Shober Bridge was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999 as part of the Ellis Street Graded School Historic District. This has been the location of a bridge since the North Carolina Railroad created the line going west in 1857, and is named for Colonel Francis Shober, a North Carolina congressman in the post-Civil War era. The East Fisher Street Bridge, located in the 200 block, is part of the Brooklyn-South Square Historic District. Both bridges recently underwent extensive repairs. 
 
Each bridge will receive a protective coating of white wood stain on the handrails and posts to help preserve he wood, thereby extending the life of the recent repairs. Documentary photographs from the mid-1900s show that the handrails along the Shober Bridge were once painted white.

Both bridges will be closed to vehicular traffic through 2 p.m. In the event of rain or inclement weather, the project will be postponed until Saturday, Dec. 7.  We'll only be working on the street-level rails. Materials will be provided.

Volunteers are asked to arrive at either bridge and materials will be provided. Those interested in volunteering to assist with this project may call the Street Division at 704-638-5251.

N Main & 11th Street Intersection Improvements ~ Coming Soon!!

A small pilot project has been taking off behind the scenes. Earlier in the year, Sue McHugh, Sean Meyers, Tim & Laurie Klaus, Andrew Waters, and Jenni & Brian Pfaff, met with city staff, Historic Salisbury Foundation director Brian Davis, and representatives from the Community Appearance Commission to kick off a small NOMA Main Street beautification project. Here’s where we stand: 

Lynn Raker, Senior Planner with the City of Salisbury, has been working with other city staff and DOT to get streetscape prep work completed so we can “beautify” our 11th St intersection. Lynn has preliminary approval for 2 raised corner planters on commercial properties south of 11th St. We’re looking into the possibility of taking down the empty building across from the market at 11th street, the old A.T.I.C structure. The quote for the A.T.I.C. demolition is $10,000 including finish grade, seed and straw, and Lynn is working with DOT on replacement of collapsed storm drain at curb line. She has not yet talked with property owner, Mr. Helderman, about his desire to proceed with the demo, but that’s next. Long story short, improvements at this intersection are step-by-step, abut we’re moving forward and Lynn will keep us posted on progress. 

A proposed part of this project was to perhaps paint a house along the N. Main Street corridor. If there are owner-occupied properties on N. Main in need of repair/paint, where owner qualifies as low-moderate income and is willing to sign lien, the Community Development Corp (CDC) has funds to make the repairs. It’s a bid process, so volunteer labor would not be needed unless we just want to participate as community building event. Do you know any likely candidates? 2-3 of these could make a big difference to our Main Street corridor. We were originally looking at only 1-story houses, but we’re now told that a 2-story house is no problem. The CDC can bid out the work as specified, so if painting is to be done by volunteers, that would not be in the bid. 

We’ll need to gather up volunteers to focus on the streetscape work at 11th Street. We don’t have a date yet, but we’ll post as soon as we know!

https://nomanorthmain.nextdoor.com 

themainneighborhood@gmail.com

THIS WEDNESDAY!!! March 13th

Public Kick-Off Meeting for the project to revise and update the Salisbury Historic District Design Guidelines, affecting properties in these local Historic Districts: 

• West Square 
• Brooklyn South Square 
• Ellis Street Graded School 
• North Main (NOMA) 
• Downtown Salisbury

Wednesday, March 13
6:00 p.m. – 7:30 p.m.
Salisbury City Hall
City Council Chamber
217 South Main St.
 
Property owners and residents are invited to participate in discussion about preservation issues and to offer feedback about the design guidelines. The Historic Preservation Commission follows these guidelines when issuing Certificates of Appropriateness for exterior changes to structures and sites located in historic districts.

Please come to this meeting if you can!

Successful 'Urban Forest' Clean~Up Today!!

The North Main Neighborhood hosted a clean~up for our "Urban Forest" at the corner of E. Steele Street and Railroad Street this morning.  Historic Salisbury Foundation, who owns the large wooded lot, petitioned volunteers from all over the community to help us clear this neglected and overgrown lot.  WOW!  Take a drive by and you'll see the difference!!!  

Our neighbors to the north and west may not have realized what a problem this area has been, but there have been homeless folks camping in there, and free enterprise has been thriving in this little hidden forest!  With much of the underbrush removed (we still have a ways to go!), the hiding places are now being eliminated.

Folks gathered at 9am this morning with chain saws, loppers, rakes, and other implements of destruction to take on the brambles, brush, campsites, and garbage that have been accumulating here for years.  The woods is much larger than we originally thought ~ it's about 45,000 square feet or just over an acre. The easiest way to visualize the size of this lot is to picture a standard American football field from sideline to sideline ~ an area of 90.75 yards.  A typical residential lot might measure 0.15 - 0.50 acres.  So you can imagine the breadth of this project!

More volunteers from the Historic Salisbury Foundation are scheduled to return to our 'Urban Forest' this week to do some weed control spraying (sorry purists, but the brambles were FIERCE and they'll be back all to soon without some control!), and to chop some more vines and dead trees.  We will be gathering our own volunteers out there again very soon to try to complete more of the work and make this an attractive part of our neighborhood.  We can't do it without your support!

Speaking of support....can each of you ask your neighbors if they are on this mailing list?  It would be nice to be reaching as many people as we can in our 40 block neighborhood with its over 400 households.  We know we are just reaching the tip of the iceberg and we're confident that many more would love to support this neighborhood if they were just in the communication loop!  Can we get you to forward more neighborhood contacts to us?  THANKS!!!

NOMA Project Dates: March 9th and April 27th!!!

Hello North Main Neighbors & Friends! 

Representatives from the NOMA (The North Main Neighborhood) and the City of Salisbury's Community Appearance Commission met Monday February 18th to discuss possible improvements to the appearance of the North Main Street corridor.  The City has been receiving complaints as to Main Street's appearance, and as North Main Street is the last remaining residential corridor into the City of Salisbury, some attention is kindly being given to help us upgrade this section of our neighborhood.

Proposed were the following improvements:

• A possible improvement to the lot where the old gas station stood at the southeast corner of E. 11th Street and N. Main Street.
• Possible planters at the 4-corners at the intersection of 11th Street and N. Main Street.
• Painting of one home (this home will need to be in reasonable condition, owner-occupied, and a one-story dwelling)

We also discussed cleaning up our "urban forest" at the corner of Railroad Street and E. Steele Street. While not along the N. Main Street corridor, this wooded area is problematic for the neighborhood and its owners, the Historic Salisbury Foundation, have kindly agreed to help clean this area up, clearing the brush away to give us a cleaner and more visible green space.

The success of these projects hinges on our ability to rally volunteers for these projects.  Will each of you please start talking about this to your neighbors and friends?

The clean-up of the Railroad St/Steele St woods is scheduled for Saturday March 9th. Volunteers need only SHOW UP between 9 am and 12 noon, with gloves, sturdy shoes or boots, and if they would like to bring any loppers or other landscape tools, this would be appreciated.  The City and the HSF will provide other heavy-duty brush removal equipment.

We additionally discussed the potential to add some street~scaping to the old Duke Power building in our small commercial section on the bend roughly between 12th and 14th streets.

The plant and/or paint day is tentatively scheduled for April 27th....but please stay tuned for confirmation and more details.

Thank you in advance for helping to support these improvements to our neighborhood!