Column: We are a city of resilience with a resolve for all a community can be

Tony Chavonne took us on a historic journey of our downtown of almost 250 years, reminding us Thursday of all of our city’s peaks and valleys, a community’s resolve and resilience and our promises of tomorrow.

He would remind us of so much of our downtown — from the colonial days of the Highland Scots to the Liberty Point Resolves of 1775 to the Great Fire of 1831 that left us charred and in ashes to 30 years later when Gen. William Sherman and his Union troops ransacked homes, set fire to the local newspaper office and destroyed the Fayetteville Arsenal on their march toward Haymont Hill.

He would remind us of the creation of Camp Bragg in 1918, and how American soldiers later would find living accommodations with local families during World War II.

“Thus, began the supportive relationship that has nearly always existed between the downtown and the military for the past 100 years,” Chavonne said on June 13 at the fourth annual Downtown Visionaries Awards Luncheon at the AEVEX Veteran’s Club Lounge of Segra Stadium, where downtown leaders Eric Lindstrom, Dr. Hank Parffit and John Malzone were recognized by CityView Magazine for their downtown leadership and vision.

He would remind us of the flood of 1945 that left downtown streets submerged, as well as our downtown glory days of the 1960s when so many remember some of the best days of our lives.

“When downtown Fayetteville was the economic and cultural center of the county and southeastern North Carolina,” said Chavonne, 69, founder and former publisher of CityView Media. “Thousands of people would flock downtown to shop at Fleishman’s Big Store or J.C. Penney or Belk. To eat at the Rainbow Room or have a milkshake at the Carolina Soda Shop. Or to take in a movie at the Carolina or Miracle theaters.”

No question about it. There was nothing like seeing John Hensdale welcoming us at Belk with mothers buying back-to-school clothes for their children. Or a western film at the old Broadway Theater on a Saturday afternoon or Junior Mints at The Colony Theater lobby or stopping by Bill and Urbana Crawley’s soda shop for a split hot dog with a dill pickle in the middle and slathered in mustard and coleslaw.

“Little did we know the changes ahead,” Chavonne told us Thursday. “By the late 1960s, our country was dealing with civil unrest, an increasingly unpopular war and a disgruntled draft Army.”

Vietnam, he would remind us, was calling.

“Thousands of America’s young men found themselves at Fort Bragg,” Chavonne said. “A place they had no interest in being and headed to a place they clearly had no interest in going.”

Some would survive Vietnam.

Others would give the ultimate sacrifice.

“Much of the turbulence in our country during this time manifested itself in downtown Fayetteville with gaudy nightclubs, topless bars, an active drug scene and an infamous name,” Chavonne said. “The news stories of unrest we saw each night on television from Detroit, Birmingham and Chicago all played themselves out in their own way in the streets of our little downtown.”

Measured thoughts and measured words

You won’t see Tony Chavonne become emotional often. He is measured in his thoughts. He is measured in his words. For a moment, Chavonne would have to take pause in the reflection of this downtown journey, and where he served four terms as Fayetteville mayor after working as general manager at The Fayetteville Observer for more than 30 years.

“My life has been interwoven with this downtown since birth,” he said. “I was raised just a mile away in Massey Hill and, other than my college years, I‘ve never lived more than a few miles from this place. For 11 years,  I lived right in the heart of our downtown on Person Street. I invested millions in historic development, joined thousands in parades and festivals, worked on nearly every board and committee, and cried when I saw her under attack.”

A May 30, 2020, protest in Fayetteville of the George Floyd murder devolved into some protesters breaking into storefronts and the historic Market House stairwell being set ablaze, just a block from the downtown home shared by Tony and Joanne Chavonne. Damage to the structure, according to the city, was more than $84,000 in what was a night of Fayetteville infamy from downtown to north Fayetteville to Cross Creek Mall.

“While serving as president of the Chamber and the Economic Development organizations in our community, and later as mayor, I participated in dozens of visits from economic development prospects,” Tony Chavonne said. “In every case, no matter where in Cumberland County they were considering, they wanted to see our downtown. I learned from these visits that every city has a restaurant row. Every city has a retail trade area and an industrial park. But few cities have a downtown like ours. It is truly a competitive advantage, and it should be viewed that way.”

He would remind us of 1975, with the opening of Cross Creek Mall, when retail stores left the downtown for the mall in what Chavonne described as “seemingly overnight,” leaving the downtown deserted with vacant buildings.

“For many years we turned away from our downtown and focused on the glitz and glamour of new malls and the sprawling suburbs springing up around Fayetteville,” he said. “Downtown continued to deteriorate in a spiraling fall. We could have easily lost it all as so many downtowns but for the leadership of our city that emerged at that time determined to rid our downtown of its seediness and to restore it to its proud past.”

A downtown renaissance

It took leaders like Bill Hurley, our late mayor. And others to include Joan Allen, Terri Union, the Rev. C.R. Edwards, Bob Ray, Harry Shaw, Suzanne Cheek, John Smith, Bob Cogswell, Martha Duell, Rosalie Huske Kelly, John Malzone, John Corbett, Keith Allison, John Swope and Jimmy Little.

The vision,  Chavonne said, was evident in the Olde Fayetteville Commons, the Airborne and Special Operations Museum along the 500 block of Hay Street, where once the seedy nightclubs were the order of the day and night.

“ … John’s leadership of the Dogwood Festival and the International Folk Festival helped thousands of people begin to see a different side of downtown Fayetteville,” he would say of John Malzone. “And they liked what they saw.”

The landscape, Chavonne said, of our downtown was changing.

“Our first major private sector investment happened in 2008 with the construction of 300 Hay,” he said about the downtown condominiums and town houses. “For the first time in decades, people started returning to downtown to live. The North Carolina Veterans Park was added in 2011, followed a few years later by a second major private sector investment with the construction of the $18 million Park View complex” town homes.

Eric Lindstrom designed a downtown parking garage and the Fayetteville Area Transit Center, Chavonne reminded us. A $37 million Segra Stadium and minor league baseball was constructed next to the Prince Charles Hotel renovated into downtown living quarters by a private sector investment.

“Eric’s award-winning parking garage and transit center all helped add to the new modern look and feel added to our historic buildings,” he said. “Others saw it, too, as we were selected as one of America’s great downtowns.”

Chavonne took us on quite the history of our downtown, the centerpiece of the city.

“More people than ever visited downtown Fayetteville last year, where they experienced Hank’s carriage rides and Lafayette celebrations,” Chavonne said. “In the last 12 months, our downtown area has had 790,000 unique visitors, and just in case you still need to be convinced – that is 70% more than visited Cross Creek Mall.”

He reminded us of what once our downtown was, and the vision of men to include Dr. Menno Pennink, downtown businesswoman Molly Arnold, John “Mac” Healy, the late Harry Shaw, the late Rosalie Huske Kelly, and Eric Lindstrom, John Malzone and Dr. Hank Parfitt.

“What would our downtown look like if Eric hadn’t challenged the belief that you couldn’t restore a dilapidated historic building and actually live in it?” Chavonne asked. “How would the experiences of our downtown visitors be if John didn’t have the vision and the commitment that continues to this day to become the voice of Dickens and the International Folk Festival’s Parade of Nations? Where would the advocacy for our downtown come from — the type we see even today — had it not been for Hank’s determined efforts to create a Downtown Alliance?”

We are a community, Chavonne said, with more amenities on the way in the ensuing two to three years – the opening of the $80 million N.C. History Center on the Civil War, Emancipation & Reconstruction; a $20 million remodel of the Cape Fear Regional Theatre on Haymount Hill and a $144 million Crown Event Center along Gillespie Street.

Epilogue

We are Fayetteville and Cumberland County.

We’re not perfect.

But this for so many is home, and our downtown has been a part of our lives.

“The resiliency that our downtown has demonstrated for more than 250 years in overcoming devastating fires, flood, war, pandemics, civil unrest, suburban flight, big box malls, a seedy reputation, and an occasional lapse of mojo will help us to weather any challenges we might face,” Tony Chavonne said on this June 14 day of reminding us of where we’ve been, who we are and what is to come. “A downtown is a city’s living room, and how it looks and feels tells people about the level of self-respect we have for ourselves as a community.”

Bill Kirby Jr. can be reached at billkirby49@gmail.com or 910-624-1961.

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