Meeting

Report

 
RAY FARRIS
Bringing New Life to Belmont Optimist Park
by Susan Manning
      
Ray Farris gave a challenging presentation on bringing new life to the Belmont and Optimist Park communities. Ray was introduced by Emmy Lou Burchette as the champion of the Belmont Optimist Park initiative under the sponsorship of the Advantage Carolina’s Urban Development focus area. Ray has been working with David Lee and Deborah Ryan along with 44 students and 10 faculty members from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte to develop a creative vision for the Optimist Park and Belmont community. He described the problem of negative perception of these areas, which lie just outside the 277 loop, based on crime, wrecked cars and other neighborhood issues. He also described the opportunity with the Edge Condition, defined as leftover pieces of land, with competitive land values of over $40 per square foot inside the 277 loop vs. $4-$6 per square foot in the Optimist Park/Belmont areas just outside 277.
 
The UNC Charlotte faculty and students along with community volunteers have been developing a broader vision for the area including a connection from NoDa to Optimist Park, and the opportunity to fill in vacant land to better meet community needs. The group is painting a vision that embraces artistic exploration as a counterpoint to the perception of Charlotte as primarily a financial center. In addition, they are trying to maximize assets in the area including the greenway, light rail and the McGill Rose Garden. Essentially the greenway becomes a primary catalyst for change in the area. The various plan options include diverting a portion of the creek to form a center city lake near the existing Cordelia Park and use the greenway to introduce works of art and artistic/recreation activities including an outdoor movie theatre, walking trails, rock climbing, soccer fields and picnic areas. In addition, all these plans have as a goal to improve the water quality of the creek. The students in developing their plans have looked internationally for good ideas including Germany and Vancouver. They are also promoting the advantages of including streetcar/trolley service for Optimist Park, which Ray mentioned that every community would want this type service once they see it in operation.
 
Ray discussed the various challenges in implementing the plans including changing public perception, relocating the intermodel truck storage facility, designing an appropriate light rail stop, the fact that zoning is still not dense enough, redesigning the current CATS facility, incorporating affordable housing and working with key partnership groups including the City and the County. The next step includes approval and implementation for the area as a Tax Increment Financing/Development Finance District (TIF-DFD) to kick-start development and to complete the lake and greenway projects. Ray concluded his presentation by answering a number of questions from Rotary members.
  
Head Table:
Joel Walters, Phil Volponi, Catherine Browning, Emmy Lou Burchette, Phil Van Hoy, Ken Samuelson
       
Visitors and Guests:
Invocation:  Julius Melton; Visitors & Guests: Jack Smylie; Health & Happiness: John Rogers; Song: David Erdman
 
 

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ABOUT THE ROTARY FOUNDATION

In 1917, President Arch Klumph told the delegates to the Atlanta convention that ‘it seems eminently proper that we should accept endowments for the purpose of doing good in the world.’ The response was polite and favorable, but the fund was slow to materialize. A year later, the Rotary Endowment Fund, as it was originally labeled, received its first contribution of $26.50 from the Rotary Club of Kansas City, Missouri, which was the balance of the Kansas City convention account following the 1918 annual meeting. Additional small amounts were contributed each year, but after six years the endowment fund had reached only $700. A decade later, The Rotary Foundation was formally established at the 1928 Minneapolis convention. In the next four years, the Foundation fund grew to $50,000. In 1937, a $2 million goal was announced for The Rotary Foundation, but these plans were cut short and abandoned with the outbreak of WWII. In 1947, upon the death of Paul Harris, a new era opened for The Rotary Foundation as memorial gifts poured in to honor the founder of Rotary. From that time, The Rotary Foundation has been achieving its noble objective of furthering “understanding and friendly relations between peoples of different nations.” By 1954, the Foundation received for the first time a half million dollars in contributions in a single year, and in 1965 a million dollars was received. It is staggering to imaging that from those humble beginnings, The Rotary Foundation is now receiving more than $65 million each year for educational and humanitarian work around the world.

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