DAP area: Land assembly ain't cheap

We've talked here before about the mass of properties that Hank Scherich's Measurement Inc. has acquired across the street from its Morris St. HQ:

What we haven't looked at before now has been what it's cost to acquire such properties.

The old Accent Flooring store at 426 Morris -- the uppermost property highlighted in red above, nearest the ballpark -- sold to Measurement Inc. for $1.35 million back in late January, based on the imputed sales value from the deed on file with the County. The single family home next to it went for $450,000 in December 2007.

The third parcel -- a single family home shown adjoining the Measurement Inc. parking lot that used to house the Durham Farmer's Market -- sold for a cool $1 million in February of this year. That property was sold by Stephen Peters, of Peters Design Works, collectors and rehabbers of hardware, doors and fixtures from historic homes.

Nearly $3 million is a goodly chunk o' change to spend on property, to say the least. And it gives Scherich's firm a decent base on which to redevelop the land, too.

It's a further sign of one of the challenges and questions facing downtown Durham's revitalization: where will the center of the action be?

Scientific Properties has bet "south," focusing its efforts outside of Golden Belt on the Venable complex and the much-discussed Van Alen project on the current Johnson Chrysler property. This direction leverages the proximity to American Tobacco and the ballpark/theater complex, and is targeted for mixed-use high-rises.

Scherich and others in the DAP area have bet on their slice of Durham's core, banking on the DAP renovations and a possible Minor League Baseball museum to make this area, anchored by Durham Central Park, the home to retail, residential and office space.

Greenfire, for its part, has bet distinctly on the city center, hoping to string multiple small properties together with key sites like the Hill/CCB/SunTrust Building and the Woolworth site to have a similar development potential -- assuming they can solve the parking problem through the controversial reboot of the Chapel Hill St. deck.

(Scherich also has his hand in a key part of downtown, with a loan last year to the late Ronnie Sturdivant making him one of multiple financiers of Sturdivant's "Oprah building" motel and parking garage at the heart of CCB Plaza, as the N&O recently noted.)

Capitol Broadcasting, meanwhile, has an array of land at its fingertips between the performing arts center, ballpark and the historic factory complex. And the West Village folks are busily filling apartments and office space in their Phase II, with the massive Chesterfield Bldg. still to be renovated when the market is ripe.

There's plenty of pipeline to be filled in downtown. The big question for downtown investors and stakeholders alike is, when -- and who gets to go first?

Comments

[Paul]

Didn't Greenfire buy the building between the new Accent Flooring location as well as the new Peter's design works? It's a pretty huge building that overlooks the outfield of of the DAP. Anyone know how much that went for? It seems like it could have alot of potential.

[Phil]

I wonder if Scientific Properties has been basing its acquisitions/naming ideas on the basis of old B-52's lyrics: "The Van Al(l)en Belt!"

[Bill Kalkhof]

If you read the Downtown Master Plan (which is DDI's "bible" for downtown revitalization), the goal is to have multiple "centers of activity" across our downtown districts --- with key future (both near term and longer term) projects being "connectivity links" for pedestrians, bikes and cars among the various district "centers of activity" located in each of downtown's 6 districts.

Connectivity projects on our list of "things to do" include:

1. Fixing the Loop --- look for news shortly about a planning effort, involving the public, to begin to seek a solution to the Loop
2. Future trolley to run east-west along Main Street, and north-south from Ballpark to Ballpark --- linking with Duke transit and DATA to connect Duke University and NCCU to downtown and its multiple centers of activity
3. Developing, as a minimum, an attractive at-grade crossing of at Blackwell and Mangum Streets to link American Tobacco District to the City Center District --- until such time as the various partners involved with these crossings (City, County, NCDOT, multiple railroad companies, private sector, DDI) can develop and fund a more permanent solution.

[JDC]

I'd been fooling around with the Main Street trolley idea too. I just hope it'll stretch as far east as Alston Ave or at least to Golden Belt and as far west as Erwin Square. If the city can implement a reliable downtown-area transit network there won't be a "need" for so much damn parking.

[GreenLantern]

I guess expanding Central Park to the west is now out of the question given the high cost of land. That Farmer's Market seems wildly successful and is already bursting at the seams. I was hoping the lot bordering Hunt Street and the parking lot above the garden were potential areas to annex into CP and make it a bigger destination. There's just no where else for it to grow.

[patricia A murray]

I like the idea of the trolley -- it'll remind me of the old Stateliner bus in Chicago, which served the downtown area. It will be great for folks with kids who might not be able to walk from one "center of activity" to the other.

And I think that having more than one "downtown" is OK. Tokyo doesn't really have one true downtown area; it has several. The one I used to hang out in was called Shinjuku.

[KeepDurhamDifferent!]

Mad props for Shinjuku...I used to date a girl from Yokohama whose family ran one of those teeny bars in the old "gin joint" section of the neighborhood.

At what point does the DAP district intersect with OND / Duke Park? Some of the folks complaining about Trinity Park having a teardown problem might change their tune if they could get a million bucks per lot. Just sayin'.