A High Point building that once served as the headquarters of the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival may be getting a new life.

The Southwest Renewal Foundation has a contract to buy the structure on West Ward Avenue. The idea is to turn it into a business incubator.

Dorothy Darr is the executive director of the non-profit foundation. She says the building  - known as Spirit Center - dates to the 1950s and over the years taxpayers helped to renovate the building for the festival headquarters.

"We feel very strongly it should stay in a non-profit sphere, that it should not be auctioned off. Because it would be a betrayal of all this money that's been invested in it by High Pointers," she says.

The defunct Shakespeare Festival filed for bankruptcy last month. Darr says the purchase of Spirit Center must be approved by a bankruptcy trustee.

She says the incubator could assist start-ups focusing on the city's well-known home furnishings industry. It could also be used for warehouse and logistics businesses.

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