Chamber moving to Congdon Yards

May 13—HIGH POINT — Business High Point-Chamber of Commerce is moving its offices to the new Congdon Yards campus downtown.

President and CEO Patrick Chapin said the organization plans to lease or sell its headquarters at 1634 N. Main St., where it's been since 2006. The 23,000-square-foot former retail rug store was donated to the chamber by businessman Zaki Khalifa.

"It's an interesting and telling story of philanthropy, in that Zaki Khalifa generously donated this wonderful building to us in 2005, at a time when the chamber was looking for a prominent location," Chapin said. "It helped us set a course in our efforts to support our members and be more visible in the community."

BHP Chamber and its eight employees will occupy about 2,000 square feet of office space in the Plant 7 portion of Congdon Yards. Chapin said a move-in date has not been determined.

BHP Chamber led the development of Congdon Yards and is managing the campus, which includes offices for several other nonprofits and businesses, including the High Point Community Foundation, Barbour Spangle Design and Culp Inc.

"Now we have the Congdon family, who are transforming downtown High Point with their philanthropic support and creation of a campus, Congdon Yards, which will bring business, community, innovation and design together," Chapin said. "Seeing that we are responsible for the operation of Congdon Yards, it makes sense that we would be in the center of that activity. It also allows us to drive new initiatives, broader programming, deeper engagement of our members and support the economic development of downtown."

Visit High Point, the primary tourism agency in the city, leases space at 1634 N. Main St. from the chamber for its offices and its Regional Visitors Center. The agency moved there in 2014 after renovations that transformed part of the building into the visitors center.

President Melody Burnett said Visit High Point developed a lot of its programming and marketing strategies around the enhancements to the building.

"At this time, Visit High Point would like to retain our presence at 1634 N. Main St.," she said. "However, we realize that we need to explore short-term and long-range locations if we can no longer remain a tenant. We are working with our board now in developing those strategies."

Burnett said Visit High Point may explore moving to Congdon Yards once plans for an events center on the campus become more concrete.

pkimbrough@hpenews.com — 336-888-3531