Bianca Shoneman, who has been the president and CEO of Fayetteville’s Cool Spring Downtown District since September 2019, is leaving for a new job.
“I’m gonna miss this town a whole bunch,” she told CityView on Thursday. “Fayetteville has been more than I could have ever imagined.”
The Cool Spring Downtown District is a nonprofit organization that was created in 2017 to foster arts and entertainment to draw people to downtown Fayetteville. For example, the Cool Spring district is putting on the Night Circus: A District New Year’s Eve Spectacular celebration on Dec. 31, which Shoneman said has been averaging about 20,000 people annually.
Its funding comes from the city, from the The Arts Council of Fayetteville/Cumberland County, money earned from events and activities, and from grants, Shoneman said.
“It is with a heavy, heavy heart that I am writing to formally announce my decision to resign from my position as CEO with the Cool Spring Downtown District effective January 2, 2025,” she said in an email to her board of directors on Wednesday. “This decision was not made lightly, and it comes with deep gratitude for the opportunity to serve this incredible organization and community.”
She moves on to the NC East Alliance, a regional economic development organization with offices in Greenville and Edenton that fosters economic development in 29 counties. She will be the vice president of community development.
Shoneman originally came to Fayetteville from Greenville, where she had been CEO of the Uptown Greenville organization. While Shoneman worked in Fayetteville and had a residence here, her husband and children lived in Greenville.
“Eastern North Carolina holds tremendous potential, and I am eager to collaborate with partners across the region to drive innovative solutions for economic development, workforce advancement, and community enrichment,” Shoneman said in an NC East Alliance news release announcing her new position.
In her resignation letter to the Cool Spring board, Shoneman listed things the organization accomplished during her tenure, including:
- Setting up new downtown events, such as the Juneteenth Jubilee and the New Year’s Eve Night Circus.
- Obtaining designation from the N.C. Arts Council as a premier arts organization and securing three years of administrative funding.
- Temporary and permanent downtown attractions and amenities, such as the Prismatica art installation of large prisms, a mural on Old Street, and new lighting for the Hay Street parking deck.
- The Can-Do Coldwell Banker Trolley that circulates the downtown area on weekends.
The organization’s budget has nearly tripled, Shoneman said, from about $325,000 when she started to about $1 million now. A Fayetteville spokesman told CityView the city this year is contributing $293,398 of that.
When she was hired, the organization had two full-time employees and one part-time employee, Shoneman said. Now it has four full-time and two part-time workers.
A service that tracks the location of cell phones has reported that since Shoneman was hired, the number of visitors downtown increased from 3.9 million per year to nearly 4.1 million, she said.
Another point of pride for Shoneman was the establishment of the downtown district’s Safety Engagement Ambassadors program, she said. The program has two people who keep after litter, help maintain the plants in the downtown planters, keep an eye out for crime, connect homeless people to services to assist them, she said, and who are available to escort downtown patrons and employees to their cars if they feel unsafe walking alone.
Shoneman was a point person in 2022 and 2023 in persuading the City Council to authorize Fayetteville’s downtown “social district,” an area where it is legal for people to purchase alcoholic beverages in to-go cups and drink them while moving about downtown on the sidewalks. State law otherwise generally prohibits the public consumption of alcohol outside of a private space.
Fayetteville is a good place, Shoneman said.
“This town is amazing, and has a lot to offer. It’s a fantastic size — it’s not too big, it’s not too small. It’s got great shopping. It’s got authentic retailers and wonderful food,” she said. “Man, the arts here are fantastic. … I just feel really honored to have been in a position to celebrate this city’s greatness, and highlight it.”
Senior reporter Paul Woolverton can be reached at 910-261-4710 and pwoolverton@cityviewnc.com.
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