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Public Dollars Key to Downtown Plans
RALEIGH — Civic leaders in Wake County are full of ideas about redeveloping downtown Raleigh, and these ideas are rapidly approaching reality. Hundreds of millions of tax dollars, much of it devoted to paying off new debts incurred without a public referendum, will finance a new convention center, a related parking deck and hotel, re-opening up a pedestrian mall to traffic, and converting one-way streets to two-way. Jim Hobbs, president of the North Carolina Hotel and Lodging Association, says that people in the state’s lodging industry are divided over Wake County’s downtown redevelopment program.