Greensboro Eyes Spring Garden Street Makeover to Unify Corridor's Look

The 1.7-mile stretch of Spring Garden Street is one of Greensboro's busiest corridors, and city planners have made it the target of a sweeping makeover aimed at pulling its mismatched elements into a coherent whole. The Spring Garden Street Corridor plan seeks to address traffic, safety and beautification.

The initiative is specifically looking at Spring Garden Street from Holden Road down to Josephine Boyd Street, which reaches the edge of UNCG's campus. Interim Planning Director Russ Clegg at the City of Greensboro says it is a major area that deserves dedicated care. "It really connects a lot of different things. It goes by the Coliseum. It goes into UNCG. It collects Lindley Park and some other neighborhoods," Clegg said.

Spring Garden Street sees a lot of traffic, and while that's good for business, local owners say it's not always the safest with people also walking the sidewalks and crosswalks. That tension between vehicle throughput and livability is central to the plan. Clegg noted the corridor is used in many ways and preserving different modes of transportation is a part of the plan. "It's got one of our first versions of a bike lane, so making improvements to transportation so that the street feels safe for all users, and it really supports the economic development and residential uses along the corridor," Clegg said.

The concern about walkability is shared by those who use the street daily. "Spring Garden is definitely car central. It's mostly for cars, and it's kind of a disconnect since we are a college campus. I feel like it should be more walkable because I don't feel like Spring Garden Street is very walkable," said Keyonte Dotson, a UNCG student.

Senior Planner Hart Crane with the City of Greensboro Planning Department said, "I would assume we hear some things related to transportation improvements, things related to safety, things related to maybe quality of life and esthetics of the corridor and kind of protecting the community character of things that aren't on the corridor itself."

City staff from several departments are working with area residents to study critical issues and create solutions to improve the area's quality of life and guide future growth. Information for the project is being gathered through neighborhood open house meetings, pop-up events, online surveys, and community conversations.

City planners will take the input from the meetings and put it towards an action plan they will reveal this fall, offering improvements to make Spring Garden Street the best version of itself. Once developed and adopted, the Spring Garden Corridor Plan will serve as a resource for city staff, residents, business owners, and decision makers, providing a guide for growth that fosters cohesion, clarity, and community.