Business High Point takes stock
A year after its formation, an alliance of High Point’s business community has expanded its base of investors and is making progress on its policy goals.
Business High Point Inc. Chairman Scott Tilley said 30 vision investors, who each pledge at least $20,000 annually to the organization, are on board.
“The ones that we have are all renewing. The chamber is healthy,” Tilley said. “I view it as validation for the business community in High Point and that we want to be unified.”
The organization was formed last year by the merger of the High Point Chamber of Commerce and the High Point Partners.
President and CEO Patrick Chapin, who was hired in June, announced recently that the 7 Degrees of Change Foundation is the latest vision investor.
It’s led by Paul Norcross, who co-founded Phoenix Academy, a High Point charter school, with his wife, Kimberly.
The foundation seeks to make High Point the hub for developing innovative educational programs in partnership with business.
“With the new structure of Business High Point Inc., under the leadership of Patrick Chapin, this community will see, and has already seen, new life in the chamber that will have positive, long-lasting results for this community,” said Paul Norcross.
One of the goals being pursued is funding an engineering study of possible transportation improvements to the E. Lexington Avenue/Greensboro Road corridor from Interstate 74 to N. Main Street.
The idea would be to enhance economic development opportunities around the corridor, especially at the I-74/Greensboro Road interchange, and improve the city’s transportation network.
A feasibility study would be the first step in getting the project on the state’s long-range funding plans.
“We’ve raised a fair amount of money and will take it to the city and ask them to move forward with it,” Tilley said. “When we first got into this idea with stakeholders a few years ago, they all said we needed a cleaner city, we needed better gateways into and out of city.”
Tilley mentioned the city, Forward High Point and the High Point Convention and Visitors Bureau as working in concert with Business High Point.
“We all want to optimize our assets and make High Point a place people enjoy to live, people enjoy to come here and just make our economy vibrant again,” he said.