The annual Barbecue Festival, now in its 41st year, draws over 200,000 visitors each October and appears in “1000 Places to See in the USA & Canada Before You Die.”Yet behind the smoky aroma of pork shoulders lies a city reinventing itself for the 21st century. For Mayor Hayes, this transformation holds deep personal significance.“My folks moved here in 1965. They both met at the school for the deaf in Morganton, North Carolina, and so they were both deaf and my sister and I were both hearing,” he explains.“We had a lot of community members, teachers, coaches that really wrapped their arms around us and supported us as we moved our way up through the local school system here.”After spending approximately 30 years in the pharmaceutical and biotech business, Mayor Hayes saw an opportunity to give back. “I felt like I could apply some of the knowledge that I had built in the business environment and be able to help my community move forward.” The numbers tell a compelling story. Where roughly a hundred building permits were issued in 2018, today over a thousand housing units stand under construction, with another thousand approved and awaiting groundbreaking. This residential surge follows a deliberate economic diversification strategy that has attracted major employers including Siemens Mobility’s $220 million rail manufacturing facility and US Foods’ 220,000-square-foot distribution center.“Folks move here from all over,” Mayor Hayes notes.“They visit and then they come back and some even decide that they want to move here.” REVITALIZING THE DEPOT DISTRICT The transformation of Lexington’s Depot District is one of the most ambitious urban revitalization projects in the region. In 2011, city leaders purchased former furniture manufacturing buildings with a vision that took what Mayor Hayes acknowledges as longer than anticipated. “Sometimes it doesn’t happen as quickly as we all would like, and I’m sure the folks who decided as city leaders back in 2011 to purchase all of those buildings probably couldn’t have anticipated that it might take 14 or 15 years to completely build that area out,” he reflects. “But it is happening.” The catalyst arrived in 2020 when Lexington secured a $25 million BUILD grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation for a passenger rail station. The project, scheduled for completion by October 2027, includes two boarding platforms, renovation of the historic freight depot, and a vehicle tunnel under the railroad at Fifth Avenue. Norfolk Southern is currently conducting a Rail Traffic Controller Simulation 31 CIVIL AND MUNICIPAL VOLUME 06, ISSUE 11 LEXINGTON, NC
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