Business View Civil & Municipal l November 2022

130 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 3, ISSUE 9 With commerce on the rise, Gastonia is looking to set itself up for even more growth and development. The city’s marketing department has been working on a branding campaign with the department of tourism to position Gastonia as a destination city. “We are focusing on downtown, getting people to really love our city and to know us,” says Mary Elliott, Gastonia’s director of communications and marketing. “There’s a phrase I use, ‘we’re the best- kept secret we want everybody to know about.’ We are marketing ourselves and transforming our city so that this will be a place where people want to come live, work, and play.” Elliott touts the city’s many amenities for doing just that. Gastonia’s more than five community centers and various parks offer lakeside picnics, pier fishing, picnic sites, event space, lush green trails, and creative playgrounds, including a large castle for kids to roam. The city is also home reatness I N V E S T I N G A S T O N I A CHOOSE GREATNESS VISIT CHOOSEGASTONIA.COM $128 million medical facility expansion of CaroMont Health Critical Care Tower $65 million investment in mixed-used development in the FUSE District $50 million investment in new apartment homes in the heart of Downtown Gastonia to two disc golf courses, pickleball and tennis courts, a dog park, and community pools. “We have a lake inside the corporate city of Gastonia called Rankin Lake,” Reid says. “It’s a very big tourist attraction on the weekends. How rare is it to have a lake inside the corporate city limits? So, we have the amenities and they’re continuing to draw people here, and draw in families as well.” The city recently received a $500,000 grant from the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation to renovate a former golf course into an even more attractive park space with room for RV camping, fishing ponds, and miles of walking trails. “We are the place to be,” Elliott says. “It’s a wonderful place to be and I think people have a great experience here.”