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FEASIBILITY, FORECASTING

Economic Development for Downtown Streetcar Corridor

Prime Contractor: HDR, Inc.
Client: City of Winston-Salem, Forsyth County
Completion Date: 2023
Location: North Carolina

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Situation


The City of Winston-Salem is considering a streetcar alignment connecting Wake Forest University through downtown and the Innovation Quarter to Winston-Salem State University.


Goals

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  • Analyze feasibility of planning a streetcar and the impact it would have on economic growth and development in Winston-Salem, NC.

  • Assess where market demand could be reasonably expected to motivate developers to build and where residents and businesses would move in.  

  • Plan and budget to assist the city in meeting its affordable housing and business incubation targets. 

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Services

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  • Heybrook West (previously operating under a different name through December 2021) led and completed a Market Study and Forecast, forecasting expected future development over the next 20 years based on analysis of 40 years of historical data.

  • The team compared the amounts of development outlined in local Specific Area Plans to the Market Forecast described above.

  • Heybrook West also led the Development Feasibility section of the project. By combining data covering rent and sale values (CoStar), construction costs (Construction Monitor), and zoning requirements (City of Winston-Salem), Heybrook West produced a pro forma analysis demonstrating where (at the neighborhood level) market-rate development is feasible and/or where it must be subsidized (and by how much) to be built.


Results

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  • TBD; to date, results of the Market Study and Forecast provided a frame of reasonable amounts of new development, guiding discussion of economic development downtown in the context of new transportation services and infrastructure. 

  • Heybrook West delivered comprehensive reports to help the city understand how investment in transit infrastructure would likely change the economic incentives and market feasibility of new construction in the city’s core neighborhoods. 

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