Whitaker Park completely closing this year | News

WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. — With only a handful of operations still on the 220-acre site, RJ Reynolds said it’s completely vacating Whitaker Park by the middle of this year.

The company is expected to say in a few months what it plans to do with its former crown jewel. Reynolds closed the main building in January, and company officials said it should be empty in the coming weeks.

A group of business recruitment firms, the City of Winston-Salem and Wake Forest University have formed the Whitaker Park Development Authority.

“Certainly Reynolds has been cooperative in allowing us to look at this property, and we think maybe the information coming from this study will help them in their decision making,” said Winston-Salem Mayor Alan Joines.

The group has hired land use experts from Washington, D.C. to study the site and its more than 30 buildings.

The Urban Land Institute has surveyed the site over the past week and determined the vast area could be best used as a combination of residential, commercial, manufacturing and educational space.

“They made it clear it is a hard project and a big project, and we have to be patient with it,” Joines said.

Opened in 1961, thousands of tourists and school children visited the site over the years. The plant drastically cut production last year due to less demand for cigarettes, and 500 workers were moved to the newer plant in Tobaccoville.