N&O features the Ambacco apartments -- they're just off I-40, you know

The N&O launched a new series in this Monday's edition; over the course of the year they'll be focusing on the Triangle's changing landscape for architecture in and around the city centers.

American Tobacco's Phase II is the first such project featured; Jim Wise does a good job covering the conversion of the Noell and Old Bull buildings into apartment spaces, and there's a very nice photo feature to boot that includes a peek inside both buildings.

Among the tidbits in the article: The coal shed at the north end of the complex, between Motricity's headquarters and the residential district, will go under construction later this year and will feature restaurant and retail options. Which is a great choice for the last unrestored facility at the ATC, both due to the coal shed's proximity to residential units and, more importantly, the coal shed's adjacency to the performing arts center, to which the ATC's north end will be connected by a pedestrian plaza.

On the snark side: Here's a laugh not from the N&O but from American Tobacco's own owner, the Capitol Broadcasting Company of Raleigh. Hard to doubt they're from the City of Oaks -- their flagship station's call sign, after all, is WRAL -- and though we Dermites gripe that 'RAL never shows Durham on their weather map, hey they've done a great job with Ambacco.

At long last, the developer has launched a new web site for the campus, a modest improvement over the surf-like-it's-1999 design it replaces. As much as an improvement as the new site is, though, one particularly amusing goof just goes to show that the Capitol folks in Raleigh sometimes still get a little confused over their Bull City geography:

The American Tobacco Campus is located beside the Durham Bulls Triple-A baseball park, adjacent to a new 2,800-seat performing arts center (opening in 2008), and bordered by the highly traveled I-40. (emphasis added)

Bordered by I-40? Only if your idea of "bordered" is a site located a half-dozen miles north of the L.A.-to-Wilmington connector. (For the record, the ATC passes next to the Durham Freeway, which hasn't been signed for interstate connection uses since '40 opened in South Durham back in the early 1990s.)

Comments

[Matt Sayler]

http://www.members.cox.net/ncroads/nc145149.html

Made me look up the history of '147.

:)

[John Schelp]

Apparently, Capitol doesn't like being next to anything called the Durham Freeway. Back in 2004, they tried to change the name from I.L. "Buck" Dean Durham Freeway to "Innovation Highway" or I-way.

Our office of economic development even joined in...

>The I-way "really builds on the strategic plan we have for downtown... It gives us a context in which to recruit companies and expand existing companies." (Alan Delisle in the 4/29/04 Herald-Sun)

The effort failed.

Capitol is not alone in mistaking NC-147 for I-40. Until just a few years ago, WTVD's on-air weather map noted the freeway as I-40. (A quick phone call to the station, near the freeway, corrected the error.)

BTW, Buck and Pearl Dean lived on Rosehill Ave. Their bungalow has the only sidewalk on this leafy street in Old West Durham. Mrs Dean ran the Remnant Shop on Ninth Street (most folks just called it "Pearl Dean's").

[Toastie]

I'm sure the 24,000 residents of Barstow, California will be surprised to learn that I-40's western terminus is in Los Angeles. Poor, misunderstood Barstow... :D

As for the ATC being "bordered" by I-40, Durham itself doesn't do itself any PR favors in those "Now entering Durham" road signs that tout its significance of being a city defined by, not one, but two, major interstate highways! (There's I-85 to the North, I-40 to the South, and a star in middle for Durham).

[Will]

I like Innovation Highway or I-way. But I have an iPhone and two iPods so maybe that's why :)