{"id":10840,"date":"2014-10-30T11:37:40","date_gmt":"2014-10-30T15:37:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/?p=10840"},"modified":"2014-11-01T17:51:15","modified_gmt":"2014-11-01T21:51:15","slug":"lynchburg-trip-with-city-council-the-ida-live-10302014","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/10\/30\/lynchburg-trip-with-city-council-the-ida-live-10302014\/","title":{"rendered":"Lynchburg Trip With City Council & The IDA – LIVE! (10\/30\/2014)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note<\/strong>: This article is now complete. We’ll have a BreakDown article to go in-depth on this trip and a bonus photo article.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n

SouthsideCentral is riding along with Danville City Council and the Industrial Development Authority to tour Lynchburg’s redevelopment efforts in their downtown… and you’re right here with us! The bus leaves around 12:30 PM and we’ll be back in town around 9:00 PM.<\/p>\n

Be sure to refresh this page often throughout the day as we’ll be adding photos, commentary and what’s happening all throughout the trip. We’ll clean the article up when we get home and add some bonus coverage. It’s the only LIVE! coverage of this, and we’re glad you’re following along!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

And I thought I was running late…<\/p><\/div>\n

All righty! We’re the first to arrive.<\/p>\n

It’s 11:45 AM, and I’m still the only one here. Nice. Mark Aron from River City TV stopped by to say hello. He’ll be videoing today’s road trip and will make a TV program out of it. Today’s schedule is to arrive at Lynchburg City Hall at 2:00 PM. We’ll have a presentation about their Downtown & Riverfront Master Plan and the Bluffwalk. At 3:30 PM, we’ll head to Monument Terrace and board Lynchburg’s trolley for a tour of the redevelopment area. After a reception at the Craddock-Terry Hotel, we’ll head back home.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

John Gilstrap beats me to the bus<\/p><\/div>\n

People are starting to arrive. And we’re ready to go.<\/p>\n

Mayor Sherman Saunders, Vice Mayor Gary Miller, Buddy Rawley, John Gilstrap, James Buckner, and Lee Vogler are on the bus. We’ll pick up Larry Campbell at WKBY outside of Chatham. That’s seven out nine council members. From the IDA, we’ve got Neal Morris. That’s it. Boo.<\/p>\n

City Manager Joe King, Economic Development director Telly Tucker. Corrie Teague, Arnold Hendrix and Mark Aron are here from the city. City Attorney Clarke Whitfield will meet us in Lynchburg. Denise Thibodeau from the Danville Register & Bee is the other media representative with us.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Telly Tucker talks to IDA Chairman Neal Morris<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Mark Aron is way too comfortable back there.<\/p><\/div>\n

We’re riding on a beautiful D&M Bus Lines bus today. Super comfortable and it’s even got wi-fi. At 1:30 PM, we’re at the intersection with Route 40.<\/p>\n

1:55 PM – We’re 11 miles out of Lynchburg. Telly Tucker tells us about today’s plans.<\/p>\n

2:25 PM – We’re here.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Lynchburg Mayor Michael Gillette welcomes the group.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Danville’s delegation takes up the first two rows of seats.<\/p><\/div>\n

The Mayor of Lynchburg welcomes the group. Larry Campbell asks about the success\/failure rate of local businesses. The question is deflected professionally.<\/p>\n

Lynchburg has a parking manager. Wow. They’ve also got a nice electronic voting board for City Council votes. I’m betting Danville will have one soon. Sherman Saunders is quite intrigued by it, and Lynchburg City Clerk Valeria Chambers gives us a demo and lights up the board for us.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Ooooh… fancy!<\/p><\/div>\n

Lynchburg has adopted a 20-year master plan for their downtown, committing one million dollars a year to it. The city gets around $500K in meals & lodging taxes from just the Craddock-Terry hotel downtown. I asked City Manager Kimball Payne if that $1M commitment was ever questioned due to tough budget times, and he said it has always passed cleanly.<\/p>\n

We’re getting a presentation about the downtown redevelopment.<\/p>\n

\"\"

Lynchburg’s Council chambers are state-of-the-art (at least compared to Danville). City staff have their own seating area and monitors are at each seat. Large-screen monitors are also on the wall.<\/p><\/div>\n

Lynchburg owns 3 parking decks and more are privately owned. They are starting to put parking meters on a small area. The ciry manager said he’s having to get people used to the “parking isn’t free” concept. All parking & permit fees along with fines go to the parking authority, and that pays for the staff & operations (but not the public works maintenance costs). Interestingly, they don’t require 40 parking places for a 40 apartment unit development.<\/p>\n

3:45 PM – We’re running over and our trolley is waiting.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Compare Lynchburg’s City Hall area with Danville’s.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Now this is a perfect way to combine services into a one-stop convenience.<\/p><\/div>\n

Our trolley ride starts at 4 PM.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Is everybody having a good time?<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Lynchburg’s economic development team points out places on our tour.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

The view from the Bluffwalk.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

What a view.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

We’re touring one of the beautiful new apartments on the Bluffwalk.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Our last stop of the day is the amazing Craddock-Terry Hotel.<\/p><\/div>\n

Let’s take a tour of the Craddock-Terry Hotel.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Being an old shoe factory, you’ll notice the shoe theme. If you leave that shoeshine box outside of your room overnight, they will fill it with your breakfast in the morning.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

This is one of their banquet rooms.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

This is the wood-fired pizza restaurant on the 1st floor. Denise Thibodeau, hello!<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"

Our reception at the Craddock-Terry Hotel to end the night.<\/p><\/div>\n

We’re going to have a BreakDownbonus photo article<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Editor’s Note: This article is now complete. We’ll have a BreakDown article to go in-depth on this trip and a bonus photo article.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SouthsideCentral is riding along with Danville City Council and the Industrial Development Authority to tour Lynchburg’s redevelopment efforts in their downtown… and you’re right here with us! The bus leaves around […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[58,6,13,15,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10840","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-danville","category-eventscentral","category-livecentral","category-lynchburg","category-newscentral","odd"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pwqFk-2OQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":10835,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/10\/29\/insidecentral-big-thursday\/","url_meta":{"origin":10840,"position":0},"title":"InsideCentral: Big Thursday!","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"October 29, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We've got two LIVE! events coming up on Thursday, so let's tell you about what's coming up. On Thursday, Danville City Council and the Danville Industrial Development Authority will take a tour of Downtown Lynchburg and look at their redevelopment efforts. SouthsideCentral will be on the bus and we'll give\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "InsideCentral"","block_context":{"text":"InsideCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/insidecentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10941,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/11\/02\/bonuscentral-lynchburg-trip-photos\/","url_meta":{"origin":10840,"position":1},"title":"BonusCentral: Lynchburg Trip Photos","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"November 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We've told you about the Danville City Council trip to Lynchburg. We've also done a BreakDown on what happened. But now, let's do a BonusCentral on some other photos from that day... We'll caption these photos to give you a heads up. We've got more photos coming. And we've always\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BonusCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BonusCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/bonuscentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/1wPgKfR.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/1wPgKfR.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/1wPgKfR.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/1wPgKfR.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":10925,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/11\/01\/breakdown-the-lynchburg-trip\/","url_meta":{"origin":10840,"position":2},"title":"BreakDown: The Lynchburg Trip","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"November 1, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"We've already given you commentary and photos on Danville City Council & the Industrial Development Authority's\u00a0 trip to Lynchburg on Thursday, so let's do a BreakDown and look at it much closer. We'll go from the start of the trip to the finish line. Let's bring out a BreakDown Big\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BreakDown"","block_context":{"text":"BreakDown","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/featurescentral\/breakdown\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":17069,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2016\/02\/16\/danville-city-council-live-21616\/","url_meta":{"origin":10840,"position":3},"title":"Danville City Council – LIVE! (2\/16\/16)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"February 16, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Editor's Note: This article is in editing mode now. Things can and will change. I'll let you know when the article is finished. SouthsideCentral is LIVE! at tonight's Danville City Council meeting. The meeting starts at 7 PM, and it should be over quickly as there are only three non-controversial\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Danville"","block_context":{"text":"Danville","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/locations\/danville\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/AhydRDX.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/AhydRDX.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/AhydRDX.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/i.imgur.com\/AhydRDX.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9712,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2014\/08\/06\/no-articles-today-its-my-birthday\/","url_meta":{"origin":10840,"position":4},"title":"No articles today? It’s my birthday.","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 6, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's an SouthsideCentral article that I'm writing about having no SouthsideCentral articles today. Oh, that makes perfect sense. Sheesh. Anyway, here's what's going on at SouthsideCentral Central (hey, you make up a name for our operations center then) for today and tomorrow. Today, you got nothing! Um, except this article\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "BlogCentral"","block_context":{"text":"BlogCentral","link":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/category\/blogcentral\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"sclogo","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/sclogo.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":13552,"url":"https:\/\/www.southsidecentral.com\/wordpress\/2015\/08\/06\/danville-city-council-before-the-meeting-8615\/","url_meta":{"origin":10840,"position":5},"title":"Danville City Council – Before the Meeting (8\/6\/15)","author":"SouthsideCentral","date":"August 6, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Editor's Note: This article is now complete. The Super Bowl has a pregame show because it's the biggest football game of the year. Tonight's Danville City Council meeting is the equivalent of the Super Bowl (except the outcome is already known here). 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