Main Street Lumberton and Friends of Main Street Lumberton gathered local officials together at a meeting called jointly by both organizations on Thursday Sept. 28 to officially announce the beginning of the latest phase of development for Downtown Lumberton. 

Taking the stage of the Carolina Civic Center, the organizations joined with Lumberton leadership to announce the official kick off of planning for their 2024 Downtown Master Plan. 

Starting with the first of three segments of the planning process, developing the plan is expected to take place from now until September 2024. 

The main goal is to allow input from residents, business owners, property owners and the broader Lumberton community to create a “community supported vision of the future of downtown.” 

All three phases will be implemented over the next 12 months and broken down in the following timeline: 

Phase 1: Downtown Assessment  Sept.-Dec. 2023

This phase will include small group listening sessions, a public kick off meeting, a community wide survey and an analysis of background information. 

Phase 2: Downtown Workshops Jan.- March 2024

The community will have three opportunities to participate in downtown workshops to develop the main issues and ideas to include in the future plans. The workshops will be used to provide an opportunity for evaluating downtown improvements and development scenarios. 

Phase 3: Downtown Master Plan Development April- Sept. 2024

The public will get a chance to review and provide input on the draft of the Master Plan. Recommendations from the plan will be incorporated into a phased implementation plan. 

Along with the announcement of the kick off of the planning process, the downtown community was also given an update on the City’s previous downtown development plan which was incorporated from 2017 through 2022. Benchmark Planning, a provider of professional planning services headquartered in Charlotte, NC has been contracted to develop the new Master Plan .

Benchmark was also responsible for the City’s last five-year development plan which was able to be completed on schedule in 2022. 

For now, the Lumberton community is welcome to take the Downtown Master Plan Survey online here.