Downtown Main Street:  

Streetscape improvements, new infill development, activated street-level frontage, and the completion and extension of the town’s urban fabric will create a walkable, well-connected Downtown and Main Street. The long-term vision for Mount Airy will celebrate the Town’s many unique assets by thoughtfully addressing challenges without compromising what makes Mount Airy special. As the Town grows and changes, these qualities should be respected, improved, enhanced and celebrated. The fabric of the Town should be maintained, infill should be encouraged, and appropriately-scaled mixed-use development should grow outward from the Town and along Center Street. The Town should limit or preclude auto-centric solutions and prevent suburban development patterns and land uses encroaching inward from the Town’s boundaries and along Route 27.

 

Park Avenue:  

The intersection of Park Avenue and Main Street can be unsafe. Visibility is strained due to the severe grade of the street and the acute intersection angle, creating pedestrian-vehicular safety issues. Left turns here are illegal, but do happen occasionally. The Master Plan will evaluate the pros and cons of one-way conversions that may add new programmable open space and streetscape improvements that enhance visibility and improve pedestrian safety without compromising traffic, circulation, and emergency response times.

 

The Flat Iron Building and Historic Train Station:  

Redevelopment of the Flat Iron Building and site have been previously looked at, in part, as a way to address the challenge at Park Avenue. The re-use or redevelopment of the site, as a way to reconcile safety and circulation concerns, will be evaluated. The Train Station will be considered as a place for relocating the Mount Airy Museum, now housed in the Flat Iron Building. The Flat Iron Building has been considered as a Town Police Building but determined inappropriate; alternative location(s) for a Police Building and Community Center will be evaluated.

 

Center Street Corridor:  

Center Street should be connected to Route 27 to improve connectivity and circulation, but more importantly as an extension of the scale, character, and walkability of Main Street. This is consistent with recommendations of the 2013 Comprehensive Plan. The Downtown fabric should be encouraged to grow outward towards Route 27, using appropriately-scaled mixed-use buildings with ground floor retail/restaurants/lobbies to activate the street-level frontage. The appropriate placement and organization of buildings and uses will enhance the Center Street-Route 27 intersection as a gateway to Downtown and position the corridor as a complementary extension of Main Street.