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Current Projects

Wayfinding Signage System
Riverwalk
Broad Street Improvements
Five Points
Events/Promotions
Ship Hauling Machine

Completed Projects

Spider Lily Sculpture
F-11 Restoration
Urban Renewal Waterfront
Central Business District
James Reed Lane
Municipal Service Tax District
Union Point Park
Belk Building Rehabilitation
Council Bluff Green

Before 2010

Over the past 25 years, the City, Swiss Bear and the Uptown Business & Professional Association (UB&PA) worked to promote the revitalization of the greater Five Points area. This area has the largest concentration of poverty within the four-county labor market, per the 2000 Urban Design Plan housing study. Many vacant and underutilized commercial properties along Broad Street and residential areas to the north and south of Broad Street, west of downtown, are distressed and in need of renovation and/or replacement of substandard housing.

Swiss Bear initiated, helped fund and coordinated the 1990 and 2000 urban design plans. The UB&PA established a small learning and business center. Substantial investment by the City includes the renovation and construction of new housing with block grant money; construction of a new building for the Police Department and Fire Station; the purchase and renovation of the First Citizens Bank for utility services; and funding the underground utilities for the 1.5 mile of major streetscape improvements for Broad Street completed in 2010. However, brownfields assessment, cleanup and redevelopment is needed to create new job opportunities and increase transit opportunities for the community. Housing in good condition needs to be relocated, substandard housing demolished and streets widened with adequate drainage.

Current Focus

The City's commitment to improve the quality of life in the Five Points and surrounding residential neighborhoods led to being a recipient in 2011 of a $175,000 grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), who selected New Bern as a Brownfields Area-Wide Planning Pilot Program.

Goody Clancy, a consultant group from Boston, Massachusetts, is working with the Department of Planning & Inspections and a citizen-based Steering Committee to create the New Bern Gateway Renaissance Plan. The plan will identify best uses for brownfields based on community input, environmental data, market analysis and it will assess current infrastructure needs to support reuse. Development of the plan is expected to facilitate community involvement in brownfields assessment, cleanup and redevelopment, connect brownfields to reuse of new job opportunities and increase transit opportunities for the community.

By definition, a brownfield site is real property, the expansion, redevelopment or reuse of which may be complicated by the presence or potential presence of a hazardous substance, pollutant or contaminant. Completion of the plan (winter of 2012) will be presented to the New Bern Board of Alderman for approval and adoption. Swiss Bear is committed to working closely with the City and other organizations to implement the plan.