Editorial: Broad-based buy-in needed for Old Town

A new vision for the Old Town area of Greenwood has been unveiled. It involves a series of one-way streets to ease traffic, wider sidewalks to make it easier for pedestrians to get around, new stores and new restaurants.

Old Town resident and economic development commission board member Chuck Landon unveiled the plan recently. The concept calls for transforming the Old Town area through the redevelopment of part of Market Plaza, the rerouting of traffic to go one way and the creation of a new tax-increment financing district that would set aside tax dollars to help pay for various projects.

A few buildings on Market Plaza, such as an abandoned used car dealership, could be torn down to make way for new development near the intersection of Market Plaza and Lincoln Street. The Suds, Jockamo’s Upper Crust Pizza and other businesses on Market Plaza would remain.

The plan also would preserve 150-year-old buildings at Main Street and Madison Avenue that are listed on the National Register of Historic Places and that residents fought to save.

Greenwood would widen the sidewalks in front of those businesses but would do so by narrowing Main Street to two lanes and making traffic one-way westbound past the fire station. Drivers headed east would take a short loop down Market Plaza, onto Machledt Drive, along Meridian Street and back to Main Street.

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