The Emerging Scene On Main Street -‘Living Above The Store’ – Coming Soon

One of the highlights of The Main Street Conference in New Bern was the opportunity to see two gorgeous ‘living above the store’ homes. Coming soon to Main Street, we will have the same opportunity. What I saw was amazing. In this case, both places are owned by retired couples that filled their second-floor homes with a lifetime of collecting art, beautiful furniture, and southern charm. New Bern is desperate for rental and sale places in order to live downtown. This emerging scene of ours will fill an important nitch for young professionals, management that is connected to the new jobs being created, for singles, couples, retired folks and those who want to live close to their work. These ‘living above the store’ opportunities illustrate how the revitalization of Rocky Mount is unfolding: an example of preservation, restoration, and repurposing done the right way. This availability to live downtown in our historic commercial buildings is vital to saving Main Street; the name I use to include the entire downtown district. I hope the New Bern photos get you excited about the work going on downtown. The Repairers of the Breach are hard at work.

Photographs of the second ‘above the store’ living later this week.

After keeping me company on Main Street, you get it that there is something at stake here that goes beyond the obstacles to grace Main Street can encounter. This quote says it better than I can.

“The current passion for reuse might be explained by sustainability or fashion but, most importantly, it affords a sense of history and texture, taking advantage of buildings already embedded in cities. They are buildings with atmosphere, history, and stories inscribed in their fabric. And sometimes sustainability isn’t just about the energy and materials saved but about the stories, craft and intelligence embodied in its walls.”                                        -Paul Miles – The Financial Times