The High Point Market occupies a large portion of High Point’s downtown – more than 11.5 million square feet in 180 buildings. It is recognized that many of the buildings, especially the ground floor, contribute little to the day-to-day vibrancy of downtown streets. However, the event is critical to the short-term and long-term success of downtown. It creates thousands of local jobs, generates hundreds of millions in tax revenue, and attracts worldwide attention. It’s important to recognize that although the Market takes place only a few weeks per year, the economic impact is year-round.

The Market is important to High Point and downtown. Finding opportunities to enhance the experience along streets in the Market district will be important as well as improving the sense of place and vitality of other parts of downtown.

A large portion of what most people see as downtown High Point is comprised of the High Point Market. The required footprint for the Market leaves few opportunities to build the critical mass of people living downtown necessary to support typical downtown land uses including restaurants, offices, and retail. According to the 2020 U.S. Census, only 1,174 people are living downtown in approximately 500 housing units. Recent developments in the downtown area including Truist Point Stadium, Stock + Grain Food Hall, Congdon Yards and others rely on people living outside of downtown as their customer base. Expanding housing opportunities and getting more people living in the downtown area will add viability. The ability to walk and bike to restaurants, shopping, and recreation is an important attribute to urban living and as the number of housing units grow so will the demand for local businesses.

There are more than 63,000 jobs in High Point. Approximately 6,475 jobs are located downtown. 1,400 of those are in the public sector such as city or state jobs and another 2,725 are associated with the hospital (located in the northwest corner of the downtown). It’s worth noting that more than a 1,000 new jobs have been created in the downtown between 2019 and 2023. A greater number of downtown businesses and workers could help to grow demand for downtown housing and retail, such as restaurants and shopping.