N&O: Sound Pure coming to Washington St. in DAP district

Driving home from the Bulls game last night (see the end of the post for more on that), I drove past the sleepy old DAP and up Washington to get home. Dodging a dumpster on Washington near Trinity, I noted a formerly boarded-up building being gutted and rehabilitated across the street from the former Cal-Tone Paints shop, soon to open as the Trinity Lofts condos.

I made a mental note to check it out for the blog, but turns out Jim Wise at the N&O had the story covered already, with the announcement in this morning's Durham News that the building at 808 Washington was under renovation by Todd Atlas, a Duke alum and now-grad student who'll be opening a recording studio and high-end guitar showroom in the old Regal Laundry, along with a mix of office and storage units.

Check out the full story, including Atlas' concerns about the difficulties that small developers face in a downtown increasingly dominated by major players like Craig Davis, Greenfire and CBC, at the Durham News web site.

The DAP district is likely to be one of the areas of greatest change in downtown over the next decade, just as the American Tobacco and West Village/Brightleaf areas have dominated the past one. The DAP mirrors the ATC/DBAP area in many ways -- a public investment (the DAP renovations) is at the center, which is likely to bring in a key stakeholder (MiLB) whose secondary investments (proposed museum complex) will have ripple effects on other developments.

In the case of the DAP district, however, multiple smaller, local developers like Atlas, Denny Clark, Bob Chapman and others have cards on the table. Which is likely to lead to a tenor of development that is drastically different than the more monochromatic American Tobacco and West Village projects.

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Back to the Bulls game, though. If you get a chance to go to tonight's game (and can scrounge up a ticket), it's worth the price of admission for the fireworks alone. Though the Bulls are now a lock for the International League playoffs, making this game a bit more momentous than last night's, the sight of the fireworks shooting off not 20' in front of the under-construction Diamond View II building is pretty awe-inspiring. Though I'd imagine heart-stopping for CBC's insurance carrier, after watching what looked like a couple of pyrotechnics misfire into the interior of the office building.

Anyway, it's on to the post-season for the Bulls. And all without misfits and miscreants B.J. Upton, Delmon Young, or Elijah Dukes. All of whom have moved out of the Bull City they mocked last year, to help the Deviled Eggs move up to... er, wait, they're still stuck in the basement of the AL East, and in Tropicana Field to boot. Meanwhile, the trouble-free Bulls are on their way to something they never accomplished when the Terrible Trio were here.

Addition by subtraction, indeed.

Comments

[Phil]

Todd is a great guy and he's bought a great space (from, coincidentally, another great guy I know). I look forward to seeing what he puts together there.

[Steve Jones]

Here's the link to the Jim Wise story: http://www.thedurhamnews.com/bull_market/story/83379.html

[JDC]

Deviled Eggs! Marvelous! ESPN's Bill Simmons had a great piece on the lowly D-Rays on his site earlier this week. I'll take the DBAP over Tropicana any day. That place looks depressing.

[dccnc]

....monochromatic.....appropriate description for our figurative front and side yards, but definitely not in our own backyard, thank you.
A number of us relatively long term property owners on the north side of downtown have been
meeting since March 2006 to formulate concepts and seek professional advice on how "to create a cosmopolitan and
sustainable mixed use neighborhood". As a result of those meetings (and the initiation of the DAP renovation)within the next 2
years there will be
several DAP area projects in the $10-$30+MM range.
Befitting the diversity of ownership and the fact that probably all of these projects will be not be rehabs or renovations, this neighborhood will
definitely not be
monochromatic
...'nuf for now...