Bull City Rising

Durham Rising's risen -- now the real work begins

So Saturday night's Durham Rising event, by all accounts, was a big success. My wife and I spent a few hours wandering around downtown with friends from Morrisville no less. We tried out the new Locopops, took tours of the Baldwin and Kress buildings that Greenfire is renovating, watched the Scene of the Crime Rovers set up to crash the People's Processional (which was quite a sight for our Mo'ville pals), and so forth. We certainly weren't alone -- by the best estimates there were as many as 10,000 people present to celebrate the completion of Durham's long, painful, but very necessary streetscape renovation project.

I was originally going to post photos of the events, but the Internet is far ahead of me, so let me just link to this thread over at City-Data, where a new downtown resident posted a bunch of photos, followed by an even larger set from Downtown Durham Inc.'s communications guy. On the more pointed side, fellow blogger-in-crime Barry has a good collection posted with commentary, while Gary's post (featuring a most snarkworthy Middle Earth-style map of downtown, and Bill Kalkhof in a pedicab) asks good questions and is also worth a visit.

To the chagrin of the Internet trolls, the heavy-breathers still agitated over the Bull City's pesky diversity, it was a really first-class event -- and one enjoyed mightily by all aspects of the Durham community. Families, seniors, kids in strollers, black and white Durhamites alike came out to play, to hear some great bands (including new local favorite Bull City), eat some junk food, and to just generally have a good time.

As great as the one-night only spectacular was, of course, the real payoff for this whole project is what comes next -- what happens when the stages and lights come down and the sun comes up.

Durham's first shot at "urban renewal" over at Endangered Durham

Generally speaking, I avoid posts at BCR that just say, "Check out this piece at so-and-so's blog," mostly because most of y'all read my fellow bloggers-in-crime on a regular basis, anyway.

I'm making an exception today because of the sheer importance of what's posted over at Endangered Durham today. Gary's posted a copy of the 1960 report on urban renewal in the Bull City. The cover -- showing historic old buildings renovated and re-faced to look like one of those always-modernist alien cities that Kirk and Spock would beam down to in "Star Trek" -- is chilling, and shows just how far we almost fell as a city.

It's important reading, particularly as we're about to celebrate the completion of the downtown streetscape renovations tonight. It's important to show that sometimes a plan doesn't come together -- and sometimes, that's a good thing.

Durham Rising: A two-way affair

It's official: The conversion of Durham's Main St. and Chapel Hill St. from one-way to two-way will take place after the Durham Rising event on Saturday. It actually makes a ton of sense (and I had a suspicion they might try to do this) -- after all, if you want to convert roads from one-way to two-way, what better way to do so than to shut the streets for, oh, five hours or so and then open 'em back up the new way?

As much attention as the concrete pavers, plazas, sidewalks, and streetlights have gotten on the Durham downtown streetscape project -- and deservedly so -- the street conversion gets less attention, but could be one of the biggest keys to bringing downtown back alive.

Think about the connection from West Village and Brightleaf to downtown, for instance. Formerly, eastbound traffic on Main St. hit the downtown loop and dumped unceremoniously onto East Chapel Hill St., making it impossible to have a quick driving connection between the Hill/CCB/SunTrust tower and the Chesterfield. (And forget about getting from downtown to Brightleaf on Main St. -- you face an unceremonious diversion off to Morris and around to the downtown loop.)

Or try to get to Rue Cler as you drive Mangum St. southbound into the urban core. No right turn on Mangum means you're diverted to the dastardly loop again, or you have to come up to Parrish and back down to Chapel Hill St.

The transformation of Main and Chapel Hill to two-way shouldn't just make it easier to get around; if all goes well, it should add a sense of vibrancy and engagement to the center, by facilitating more traffic downtown. Unlike the 1960s and 70s, when urban planners thought pedestrians would only feel safe shopping downtown if cars were well-controlled and separated from the urban landscape -- viva la pedestrian mall -- we recognize now that a certain level of traffic and activity is necessary to bring a sense that the city is alive and inviting.

Downtown's businesses are certainly glad to see the disruptions of street work stop. I suspect they'll be even happier to see cars coming both directions.

Broad Street gets a new coffeeshop

Looks like there's a new coffee shop on the Durham scene -- this one just steps from the Broad Street Cafe, but with a long and storied lineage.

Joe Van Gogh has opened at 1104B Broad Street this past Monday in a "pre-opening," a la Parker & Otis' recent bow, across the street from Clements Funeral Home and next to the old Randy's Pizza location. Although the name's new, it's owned and operated by the folks behind the Cup A Joe stores in Chapel Hill and Hillsborough, and provides the coffee to the popular Weaver Street Market shops. (The Cup A Joe name couldn't be used due to legal wrinkles with the owners' one-time business partners, who operate Raleigh's Cup A Joe cafe.)

Joe Van Gogh on Broad will open at 6:30 weekday mornings at least (more soon on their permanent hours.) From the traffic on the Watts-Hillandale listserv, it's clear they have a strong following from long-time fans of their other locations, though many neighbors are also asking the big question as to whether two coffeeshops can thrive just a block or so from each other. It's a doubly-important question given BSC's increased focus on live music and entertainment in the evening, which has made Broad Street Cafe a real neighborhood destination.

Stop by and check out Joe Van Gogh -- they're offering 20% off prepared coffee drinks this week as part of their pre-opening celebration.

Durham multimodal transit station gears up

Amidst all the excitement over the budget deliberations at this week's City Council meeting, it's easy to have missed an interesting item on the consent agenda for the week -- a plan to move forward with early construction work on the Durham multimodal transit station slated for the old Heart of Durham site at Willard & W. Chapel Hill, across from the NC Mutual Life, er, Legacy Tower building downtown.

According to the memo for Council on the agenda for Monday night's meeting, the constant rise of construction prices has impacted the Durham Station, as it has so many other projects in the Bull City. Two of the major unknowns of the site, however, are:

• The potential environmental remediation costs for the land, given the presence of a former automobile repair shop on the site, and
• The constantly-rising cost of structural steel.

As it stands, the project is over-budget and the City's working with the project architects on everyone's favorite term, "value engineering" -- that is, scaling back on project elements to reach the desired cost. Of course, City staff prefer to keep the design as planned and to try to instead squeeze every mile out of the existing funds.

So, it's been proposed that the City move forward with bidding out and beginning work on the preparation of the transit station site, including earthmoving, mass grading, erosion control, and -- the kicker -- environmental mitigation. This is seen as a riskier phase in terms of project costs given the unknowns of what's under the soils. The plan is to begin this work even in advance of having the rest of the costs known... or even the whole project as designed greenlighted... in order to settle this part of the cost question.

Secondly, the City's planning to move forward with getting bids and delivery timeframes on structural steel needed to erect the building, though not to actually carry through on the order until it's known whether the project as a whole will be financially feasible.

The long and short of it for downtowners? Don't be surprised to see bulldozers chugging along at Willard and W. Chapel Hill soon... but don't hold your breath waiting for the station to actually begin rising from the ground, either. No matter what, nothing more on that front will take place until the City Council resumes its meetings in August.

More downtown dining news: Locopops, Five Points Cafe open this week

A couple of additional downtown dining updates, in addition to yesterday's big news about Jujube's owner bringing a restaurant to Rogers Alley soon. Looks like a couple of establishments are trying to get started on or before the Durham Rising event this Saturday to get some free exposure and marketing.

First, a sign up at Locopops' new downtown location adjacent to the CCB Plaza notes that the tasty treat purveyor on Hillsborough will be opening its Market Street location today. (See our earlier post  on Food & Wine Magazine's recent write-up on the Locopops phenomenon.)

Additionally, Steve Matherly's Five Points Cafe is slated to open on Saturday, according to a sign posted on its door. No web site is available yet for the cafe, which reportedly is a partnership with a local culinary skills training program.

Jujube owner to add restaurant downtown

Greenfire's Michael Lemanski announced today that the owner of Jujube in Chapel Hill will be opening a new restaurant in downtown Durham, in the Rogers Alley complex that Lemanski's Greenfire is renovating near City Hall.

Lemanski made the announcement at today's Durham Rotary meeting. According to Greenfire's web site, the old Durham fire station at Rogers Alley has a ground floor restaurant space, with "[o]utdoor dining options in adjacent courtyard and front patio, terrazzo tile floors, pressed tin ceilings, huge glass doors."

No word on format for this restaurant, but Charlie Deal's Chapel Hill restaurant has become a local favorite for denizens of Asian food -- a segment sometimes overlooked in Durham dining. (Though not if you know where to look -- see Joe's recent posts at his excellent Eat at Joe's blog for some tips and thoughts on the Durham Asian food scene, past and present.)

More to follow soon, pending a press release from the Greenfire folks. 

Durham Rising: T-minus 7 days...

This coming Saturday, it's Durham Rising -- the celebration of downtown Durham's streetscape project's end, and a chance to show off the newly renovated streets, sidewalks, and plazas to the citizenry.

This past Saturday? It's crunch time for the project team.

In the golf cart? That's Walter Hudson of Triangle Grading & Paving, site supervisor for the project, scooting around downtown's streets and checking in on work crews to make sure the project's coming together.

Seven days to finish paving... to finish sidewalks... to tie up loose ends and finish the concrete pavers at key intersections. For Five Points, for the CCB Plaza, for Main & Corcoran to come together.

And soon, you'll never be able to take a photo like this one again -- both because we should be seeing traffic going both ways down Main Street, and because hopefully, there'll actually be enough traffic that you can't stand in the middle of "Main" Street on a Saturday morning without being run over.

What a difference a year makes

What was once this...

...has now become this...

Spotted at the corner of Foster and Hunt St. yesterday morning. Quite prescient, it seems. We're past "if the players did this" and "if the DNA tests show that." Instead, we've had to watch as a community asks the kind of questions -- about the behavior of its District Attorney's office, and about whether incompetence, malice, or 'just' error in judgment created the farce we've seen.

One of the two questions remaining -- "What if Nifong were to resign?" -- has now been answered. The other, and obvious, question remains to be answered perhaps as soon as today, but this one is out of Nifong's hands.

After today, where Mike Nifong's concerned, there will be one fewer 'if's' left.

Finis.

Quick update: Blu Seafood steps in where Grasshopper stepped out

Looks like the rumors are true: an eatery called Blu Seafood is slated to open soon, perhaps July, in the space formerly occupied by Grasshopper just off Ninth St on Hillsborough Road. PAC2 supported a liquor permit request on behalf of the new business by one Timothy Lyons at this week's meeting, and a sign on the door of the restaurant has the typical "opening soon" message.

No firm word on menu or ownership at this time, though the rumor is that this will not be another Giorgios restaurant. The building is still shown as owned by an LLC called "NSN2002," as it has been for several years.

Joe's got some other details over at his place.