Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
Issue link: http://www.epageflip.net/i/1149920
4 UCW JULY 31-AUGUST 6, 2019 Best of Fayetteville Best Place To Commune With Nature, Best Wedding Venue Cape Fear Botanical Garden 536 N. Eastern Blvd. 910-486-0221 or www.capefearbg.org Cape Fear Botanical Garden, a long- time Best of Fayetteville winner in these categories, is a 30-years-and-counting gem in our community. It's an 80-acre oasis of beautiful plant life, specialty gardens, winding paths and still ponds situated between the Cape Fear River and Cross Creek. A convenient few minutes' drive from downtown Fayetteville, the garden provides city dwellers with a serene getaway. The garden wins year after year not only because of its beautiful grounds but also because of its engagement with the community. Its annual events include outdoor concerts in the spring and fall, the enchanting Holiday Lights in the Garden, art and education workshops and weekly offerings of tai chi and yoga. Currently, the work of New Mexico-based artist Kevin Box is on display at CFBG through September. "Origami in the Garden²" highlights Box's fantastical, gigan- tic, origami-inspired metal sculptures. Next up? Hogwarts and All, a night of wiz- ardry and fun for 21-and-uppers in October. CFBG's specialty gardens include Camellia, Daylily and Shade Gardens, a Butterfly Stroll, the Children's Garden and the Heritage Garden. The Heritage Garden features 1886 agricultural structures and a homestead. Guided tours are also available. The Wyatt Visitors Pavilion Complex and Grand Hall set in the gorgeous atmo- sphere make CFBG not only the best place to commune with nature, but also the best venue for a wedding ceremony. Best Local Festival/Event Fayetteville Dogwood Festival 222 Hay St. 910-323-1934 or www.faydogwoodfestival.com Every spring, more than 350,000 people head downtown to the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival to check out carnival attractions, local and national musicians, trick/specialty per- formers, arts and craft vendors, food and fun in this spectacular celebration of our commu- nity. The Dogwood Festival offers educational resources for parents and children, too. The festival has received top honors at local, state, regional and international levels. In February 2018, the Fayetteville Dogwood Festival was named Best Event in the Southeast by the Southeast Festivals and Events Association at its annual conference in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. Unsurprisingly, it wins Best Local Festival/Event in Up & Coming Weekly's Best of Fayetteville year after year, too. Its economic impact is over $4.5 million. Sanctioned events before and during the festival, which always falls on the last weekend in April, make the entire month exciting. These include Cork & Fork, Miss Fayetteville Dogwood Pageant, Hogs & Rags Motorcycle Rally, Fayetteville/ Cumberland County Crimestoppers Barbecue, the Classic Car Show, Boom & Bloom Fireworks, Kidstuff, BMX shows and more. The Dogwood Festival saw a big behind-the-scenes change this past year. Carrie King retired from her 13-year post as executive director for the festival in 2018. King is rightly credited by many as being responsible for developing the festival into the prestigious event that it is today. She was succeeded by Malia Allen, who started in December 2018. We can't end this tribute to the Dogwood Festival without thanking those who started it all: Bill Hurley, John Malzone and other dedicated city leaders. Thirty- seven years ago, they put their heads together to make the last weekend in April something truly special. There's no question that they were successful. Best Change In Fayetteville For 2019 Fayetteville Woodpeckers Baseball 460 Hay St. 910-339-1989 or www.fayettevillewoodpeckers.com Last year, Fayetteville voted that downtown most needed family entertainment. That desire was satisfied with the much-anticipat- ed arrival of the Fayetteville Woodpeckers this spring. Our new baseball team is the Class A Advanced minor league affiliate of the Houston Astros, the 2017 major league baseball World Series champion. The team came in strong, hiring locals to help build its brand and hosting two suc- cessful kickoff events in mid-April. Home attendance for the Woodpeckers' first 20 games topped 70,000. As of June 2019, it had eclipsed 120,000, according to the Carolina League website. That put Fayetteville fans at the third-highest attendance in the Carolina League's 10 teams. Our average game attendance was 3,628 as of June 2019. Clearly, locals are here to cheer on our team. So are out-of-towners. Woodpeckers games are drawing in people from surrounding areas like Lumberton and Sanford. That's good news, as the city invested $40.2 million in building the Woodpeckers' Segra Stadium. With its picture-perfect concourse, diverse concession options and features like a kids zone and outdoor party deck, there's no doubt Segra Stadium and the Woodpeckers bring both family fun and endless economic promise to this community. The Houston Astros signed a 30-year lease, meaning the Woodpeckers' pres- ence and our response to them will have far-reaching implications for the future of our city. In a statement to Up & Coming Weekly this May, Fayetteville City Councilman William "Bill" Crisp said, "(In) 30 years, we can expect the Astros to be interwoven into the fabric of Fayetteville's economic development." Worst Change In Fayetteville For 2019, What Does Fayetteville Need Most Downtown parking Not everything connected to our new baseball team and stadium is peaches and cream. Paid parking in downtown Fayetteville has been a thorn in the sides of many for a long time. The addi- tion of economic development projects, including Segra Stadium and the Prince Charles Hotel renovation, were meant to draw visitors to the city center. The city, looking to fill its coffers and poised to take advantage of the anticipated crowds headed for downtown, changed its paid parking policies several times — and not in favor of its citizens. The result was frustration not just from locals looking to enjoy events and charming destinations but from employees and business owners as well. As citizens strategically found the few free parking spaces and firmly drew lines in the sand about what they were willing to pay to experience downtown's offer- ings, the city eschewed attractive transportation and parking options that would get people to games and events. Hourly employees were left wondering how they would afford to park and how much the new parking fees would affect their take-home pay. Business owners lamented the loss of foot traffic and were left to their own devices as to how to draw paying customers to their establishments despite these parking challenges. Fayetteville entrepreneurs spent decades turning downtown Fayetteville into a destination people want to visit. Developers, local leadership and investors pulled together and built a multimillion-dollar stadium under the assumption of "if you build it, they will come." And maybe they would if it didn't cost an arm and a leg to park. The fact that downtown parking won both Worst Change and Most Needed this year signals that citizens do want to regularly visit our growing downtown — and city leadership needs to get this solved. C I TY l i fe