The City will hold the third FUSE public meeting on Monday, Oct. 23 to give the public an opportunity to comment, ask questions, and get the latest information on the proposed Franklin Urban Sports and Entertainment, or FUSE, District. The meeting is scheduled at 7 p.m. at the Gastonia Conference Center, 145 Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Way.
The project’s architectural firm, Pendulum Studio of Kansas City, MO, will present a summary of feedback from the first two meetings and provide information on steps moving forward. City staff members and City Council members will also be at the meeting to answer questions and hear public opinions on the project.
The first and second public input meetings, held on Sept. 25 and Oct. 9, attracted a full house of interested citizens. “We hope that citizens will come out again because we’ll look at the specific programing suggestions for the FUSE facility. This will be the last public meeting for citizens to give us suggestions on what they would like to see in FUSE,” said Kristy Crisp, the City’s economic development director.
The FUSE project has a dual purpose. First and foremost, it is a revitalization project to bring new commercial interest, activity, and investment into an area of Gastonia that has experienced a loss of industry, jobs, and commercial business over a succession of years. At the same time, the anchor of the project is a multi-use sports and entertainment complex that will attract locals as well as tourists and the dollars that come with them. It will also act as a bridge between the City’s developing Downtown and the promising Loray Mill mixed use development creating a much larger, more vibrant and prosperous Central City district.
