Bull City Rising

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.)

TDN: Bucking history in a city shaped by geography

This piece initially appeared in The Durham News on Sat., Feb. 23. --BCR

The recent Uplift East Durham home tour offered a chance to see the restoration of stately old homes along the Vale Street and Driver Street corridors in the heart of the Bull City.

Along these streets, which sit in the midst of one of Durham's most economically disadvantaged communities, structures from grand Victorians to cozy cottages are being restored to their turn-of-the-century greatness.

Some looking from the outside in might ask, what took this community so long to hoist itself up by its bootstraps, to mix old-fashioned sweat equity with generous restoration tax credits, anyway?

But that question ignores the weight of history. The struggles of East Durham remind us that while the racial composition of East Durham has reversed itself over a half century, the community's economic profile largely hasn't -- once largely white, now largely black, still largely poor.

In fact, much of today's conditions in Durham neighborhoods stems from the fundamentals of geography, which helped cleave Durham into wealthy, working-class and poor districts almost from the city's founding in the late 1800s.

BCR in The Durham News

A quick note of thanks to Rob Waters and the folks at the N&O's Durham newsroom for offering me the chance to take on an occasional columnist slot in the paper's Saturday insert, The Durham News.

The column will run every four to six weeks, starting today. (Under the arrangement, the column will then be republished here at BCR the following Monday.)

To any new BCR readers who discover this blog via today's column -- welcome, and good to have you! Join into the lively debates here in the comments, and thanks as always for reading.

Greenfire plan: The Council work session debate

Note: This is a wrap-up of Thursday's Council work session. The original live-blogging notes from the session are available as a PDF. (Download liveblogging_notes_from_greenfire_council_work_session.pdf)

Thursday's Council work session played out about as several observers expected: a lot of financial questions, a few project questions, a couple of questions from left field. The Herald-Sun has a succinct wrap-up; we'll take a few moments to talk about where the project stands.

All in all, the mood of Council seemed receptive to the project; not a surprise, as a project of this magnitude was unlikely to reach Council before Alan DeLisle (director of Durham's Office of Economic and Workforce Development) felt there would be support for the elements in the plan.

At this point, Council is asked to review the deal points and give their approval, with any changes, at a future Monday night meeting. It's unclear whether that will have time to cycle through for the March 3 meeting or a subsequent session. If DeLisle gets that approval, the City will use the deal points to negotiate a detailed development agreement with Greenfire; that would reach Council again in the June/July timeframe for approval.

Expect Greenfire to reach out for help from the County Commission during this intervening period, once City Council approval is reached. The Greenfire team also mentioned that they're looking at private sources of financial support as well, though it's hard to guess at this point what precisely that might be. (Naming rights for the new Parrish Street tower, perhaps?)

AquaBull: Your favorite Pepsi water, in a more sustainable way?

I'll be live-blogging the City Council work session today (thanks to a well-timed opportunity for a half-vacation day from the day job.)

Mike Woodard just kicked the meeting off by presenting erstwhile water worrier Eugene Brown with a bottle of Aquafina -- with a sticker of a bull overlaid, noting that after the water is drunk, one should "refill with tap water."

An amusing and friendly tweak towards Brown, who's been one of the chief advocates on Council for the need to keep a strong eye on the water supply during this drought and on an ongoing basis -- not just in Durham, but in Raleigh too, where Brown's spoken out about a Pepsi water bottling plant that is streaming water from the dwindling Falls Lake into bottled Aquafina, at a significant markup.

Read more on Brown's Pepsi pep rallying over at the N&O.

Update: Dude, the whole crowd of us in the men's room just got a verbal warning from Brown, reminding us not to flush. It's never good to (pardon the phrase) p--- off City Council members. Maybe it's best not to p--- near them, either?

Greenfire plan: Today's Council discussion, and the loyal opposition?

Durham's City Council will discuss the Greenfire development plan and incentives today at the Thursday afternoon work session. We'll have coverage here at BCR of the meeting and the outcome as soon as it's available.

One item for the Council's consideration as it looks at the plan: A lengthy list of questions for the Council's consideration submitted by a group of citizens earlier this week (and obtainable under N.C.'s records laws.) See the full list of questions here (Download Greenfire_questions.pdf).

It's not surprising to see citizens and residents weigh in on development plans; it happens all the time at Planning Commission and City Council meetings. What is intriguing is that the citizens in questions are all downtown landowners with development interests in the city center and especially the Durham Athletic Park area.

You don't typically see developers bring forward thoughts on other developers' proposals. But it's not surprising in this case, given the breadth of the Greenfire plan and the questions it raises for current developers and property-holders downtown.

Members of the group include George Davis, owner of Stone Bros. & Byrd downtown; Hank Scherich of Measurement Inc. (who also has a stake in financing Ronnie Sturdivant's ownership of "The Oprah" at 202 Corcoran); Alex Washburn of the Trinity Lofts project; Denny Clark of the Durham Credo condo project; and John Warsalia of Alliance Architecture, who with Greg Hatem of Raleigh-based Empire Properties owns the Bargain Furniture building and 320/322 E. Chapel Hill St. downtown, the latter of which is adjacent to the Chapel Hill St. parking deck.

It's also not the first time in the spotlight: Some members of this group were also active in raising concerns to Struever Bros. initial proposal for the DAP renovations, which called for the Baltimore-based developer to redevelop the old ballpark but also to receive land and property near the landmark to build offices, residential units and retail space. (The final City agreement with Struever Bros. covers just the ballpark.)

Newark's crime pause: A lesson for Durham?

Barry wrote recently about recent comments at a neighborhood meeting where a Durham P.D. official stated that writing speeding tickets in the absence of a functioning traffic court with dedicated D.A.'s wasn't a priority, since the justice system and courts weren't devoting the time and energy to enforce penalties and consequences for what might be seen as "minor infractions." As Barry put it:

We hear a lot about "broken windows" theories of community development when we talk to our municipal leaders. Think of vehicles driving at unsafe speeds through our neighborhood streets as mobile broken windows. The prompt parents to keep their kids indoors, and discourage pedestrians from using the neighborhood. There are about as many traffic fatalities in Durham as homicides over the past five or six years. It's not an insignificant problem, and it's one that deserves more of an effort from our civic leaders to fix than what we're getting.

For the record, the meeting in question was one I attended with City staff, on the topic of traffic calming in my neighborhood. I've got a lot of respect for Durham's transportation department and its staff, and for the work Chief Lopez has done since coming to the Bull City.

But I'll confess my blood boiled over seeing the visible skepticism, bordering on derision, from a representative of the D.P.D. in this instance. (An individual invited to the meeting, incidentally, to talk about ways that law enforcement could play a role in traffic calming on a busy state thoroughfare.)

As I reflected back on the meeting in the days to come, though, I realized any frustration with the officer in question was misdirected. The broader issue is one for city leaders, who rightly prioritize violent crimes as the main target for enforcement -- but who should not, as Barry emphasizes, forget the importance of making sure that 'quality of life' issues are enforced.

This encounter was on my mind when I read a story recently about an historic pause in homicides in Newark, N.J. -- a city not much larger than Durham, but one plagued with many times the Bull City's murder rate.

Newark marked its 33rd day Friday without an official homicide, a startling fact for a city that has averaged about two killings a week over the last few years and saw homicides spike 50 percent from 2002 to 2006....

[Newark police spokesman Lt. Todd] McCarthy attributes the drop in homicides to a broader strategy to fighting crime that includes prosecuting petty crimes, like loitering and public drunkenness, as well as more serious ones.

TBJ: Art Institute to open a Durham campus in American Tobacco

The Triangle Business Journal is reporting that The Art Institutes -- a for-profit chain of 'education centers' offering associates and bachelors degrees in "the creative and applied arts" -- is negotiating to lease 40,000 sq. ft. of space in the American Tobacco complex for a Triangle area outpost.

According to the TBJ, the private career education center would offer programs in design, multimedia, culinary arts, and marketing. Education Management Corp. offers Art Institute-branded schools in many major American cities and is one of the largest operators in the private educational space; the company is applying to the UNC System for degree-granting permission, and has posted a number of career opportunities on its web site, listing a Blackwell St. address.

I find this blogworthy not necessarily on the merits of the programs themselves, but for the fact that the presence of such a tenant would be a real boon for Ambacco specifically, and downtown generally, from a demographic perspective. Expect a program like AI to draw hundreds of twenty-something students to the district each day, bringing a demand for restaurants, shopping, and residential options.

The current employment mix downtown does a great job of drawing adults -- but largely in the daytime, boosting lunch business but often leaving the crickets chirping at other times of the day. A larger young-adult presence could change the demand profile for bars, convenience shopping, and restaurants.

No word on timing for the school's intended opening date.

Bean's return: A very Durham moment

At a recent event, I was speaking with a fellow attendee about my wife's impending completion of a graduate program and re-entry into the work world -- a welcome event for our bank account, I cracked. When I mentioned we were proud to be staying in Durham, though, I got a surprised reaction, as though the natural next step in progress would be a new home in Chapel Hill or Apex.

Why do we love Durham? At the end of the day, revitalization and transformation aside, the biggest reason we wouldn't live anywhere else in the Triangle has to do with the people, and the sense of community within and among neighborhoods and residents.

Case in point: The now-successful search for Bean, a pit bull once rescued from a dog-fighting ring, then stolen out of his owner's car on Ninth Street in early February before (based on sightings) apparently escaping his abductor, left lost wandering the streets of the Bull City.

Quick update: Greenfire deal points posted on City's website

A brief update to the big story of the past few days: The City's web site now has the complete package of supporting documents, deal points and memos that go along with the Greenfire downtown renovation proposal.

I've spent the better part of an hour reading through the 173-page-plus memo that Council gets this week. This isn't a very detailed analysis, but I wanted to get up at least a few early thoughts from a first blush look at this. Warning: I fully admit I may miss or misunderstand some points here; if so, I'll correct 'em based on feedbacks in the email or comments.

The full document set is posted here. If you want to really cut to the heart of the matter, I'd suggest you review these four documents:

• The overview memo on the project from Alan DeLisle
• The five-page cash flow analysis showing City revenue versus expenses
• A summary of parking impact and timing of same
• Perhaps most fascinating, a 46-page external consultant review of the financial feasibility of the project from the perspective of outside consultants Basile Baumann Prost Cole & Associates

Some highlights:

First, it appears that the reversion of incentives dollars to the City would essentially mean that all payments would stop if Greenfire doesn't complete all the projects -- and complete a total investment of at least $284 million -- but that appears to apply 'going forward' (i.e., they don't seem to lose incentives back to Year 1.)

As noted above, though, the incentives only get paid as buildings come online, allowing property tax revenue to match incentive payment timing.

From a revenue perspective, the City plays it conservative, projecting $1.5 million in annual property tax intake from the seven projects once they're all online by FY2015. Lease revenue from Greenfire for existing parking spaces rented for the Hill, Rogers Alley and Woolworth sites contributes another $200-250k per year. There's also another $1.19 million in one-time revenue from the sale of the Ramseur St. and Parrish/Church St. parking lots to Greenfire.