It was 20 years ago that the City of Greensboro and the American Planning Association founded the non profit East Market Street Development Corporation. The goal of the EMSDC was said to be the economic development of the East Market Street Corridor and according the the EMSDC and City of Greensboro website over $150 Million Dollars has been invested there. What they never made clear was that roughly $145 Million Dollars of that money was spent on the NC A&T University Campus by the State of North Carolina. And in that figure is included the cost of A&T's football stadium on the corner of Lindsey and Sullivan Street on the opposite side of campus from Market Street.
What was also never quite clear was exactly what the EMSDC was supposed to do. Well part of the original mission of the East Market Street Development Corporation can be found in this City of Greensboro document, First Community Team Planning Report published in 1995.
What difference did it make? How many of their goals were accomplished? How was the money spent? We don't know and no one has ever bothered to tell us. Perhaps being this thing started almost 20 years ago we could get someone from the City of Greensboro to give us a progress report.
