2030 Comprehensive Plan Update, April 2024

Downtown Raleigh

Business Recruitment and Retention

Policy DT 3.10 Incentives for Key Downtown Uses

Target incentives, including grants, loans, and zoning bonuses, to jump-start lagging business sectors that have been identified as important to downtown’s success.

As a regional employment and cultural center that has more than 200 acres of underdeveloped land, downtown presents significant opportunities to house new space constructed to accommodate commercial tenants. For downtown to prosper and mature into a vibrant, mixed-use center, the retention and expansion of the commercial base will require concerted, coordinated efforts. Efforts to grow downtown business opportunities should target companies large and small, from Fortune 500 companies to independently-owned retailers. A coordinated business recruitment and retention effort will combine the efforts of multiple agencies currently operating with limited municipal oversight. The lack in coordination results in significant gaps in recruitment and retention efforts. See also ‘6.8 Organizational Structure and Functions’ in Section 6: ‘Economic Development.’ Policy DT 3.8 Downtown as a Regional Center Encourage new investments and developments that position downtown as the center of the region for headquarters, jobs, urban housing, entertainment, and transit.

Policy DT 3.11 State Government Offices in Downtown Encourage the administrative headquarters for all departments of the State of North Carolina to be located within downtown.

Action DT 3.5 Removed 2019

Action DT 3.6 Promotion of Downtown Assistance Programs

Identify and publicize programs that will provide downtown businesses with access to operating and capital assistance.

Action DT 3.7 Removed 2019

Policy DT 3.9 Downtown Business Recruitment and Retention

Action DT 3.8 Pedestrian Counts

Conduct a study of pedestrian counts on retail streets, and update the counts on a regular basis.

Promote downtown as part of a coordinated business recruitment/retention program that effectively engages economic development agencies.

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