Bull City Rising

BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for January 27, 2009

• County Commissioners okayed the $3.1 million cut in Durham Public Schools' budget; the controversial cut will mostly be made up by DPS by "deleting $2,671,267 in lottery funds that had not yet been committed to any project and by reducing the capital outlay budget by $410,595," according to the Herald-Sun. DPS spokesperson Michael Yarborough noted at BCR yesterday that while the funds have been described as unallocated to any specific project, they would have been applied to a specific list of $4 million in capital projects that now face delays. Meanwhile, county manager Mike Ruffin warns the budget shortfall is likely to grow. (H-S)
• ABC 11 reports that the bids for the current construction projects proposed by the County -- including the human services complex on E. Main and, we expect, the county courthouse -- have come in $20 million below expectation. County manager Mike Ruffin has renewed his call for accelerated construction -- including possibly using the cost savings from the work towards further-out capital projects such as the expansion of the jail, and potentially moving some of those more distant capital expenditures up on the schedule. Ruffin continues to expect that the county would borrow at low short-term rates and seek permanent financing when the economy improves. (WTVD)
• More in the H-S' RTP series; the Park is looking at the Park Center area off I-40 and NC 54, with its hotels and banks, as a possible heart for more mixed-use development to be added to the research center. (H-S)
• The BOCC approved $300,000 in funding towards collaborative programs to fight truancy and to target youth who are potential drop-outs. (H-S)

The Book Exchange to shutter in February after 75 years

Another long-time Durham business is calling it quits, and this one stings the readers among us.

The Book Exchange -- which has toiled since the beginnings of the Great Depression -- is closing its covers for good on February 14, according to this morning's Herald-Sun.

Still owned and run by the founder's daughter, a Miami-based attorney, the store had remained in the black until the last three years, but saw its sales deeply impacted by Internet sales and by university bookstores becoming more competitive.

The Book Exchange has been a fixture in local law school circles, with its staff knowing what books the profs at Central, Duke, UNC, and Campbell liked to use -- and what study guides and addenda might be best suited to steer through their courses.

The Herald-Sun adds:

Feinberg said the name of the business was for sale for the price of the property the family owns, in case someone is interested in keeping it open as a bookstore.

"I know that a lot of people are going to be broken-hearted because there are a lot of people who just love that store and come in just to browse," Feinberg said.

She said customers were sometimes locked in after close because they had lost track of time browsing in one of the back rooms.

Sales will be running until the store closes on Feb. 14, Feinberg said.

810 Minerva: Development board member becomes the developer?

It's one of those ironic moments that would belong in an Alanis Morissette song, or an O. Henry short story -- if O. Henry wrote pithy fiction about urban real estate.

The old milk warehouse at 810 Minerva Ave., just east of N. Duke St. nestled in behind the Duke Tower condos and up against an inactive railroad line, has been down the development path before. It was lined up a few years ago to become residential shell space in a project that stalled out.

Now a local resident has taken an option to purchase the property, contingent upon receiving a minor special use permit to allow ten residential units instead of the five previously approved, in a design that would resemble the conceptual drawing at right.

That Durhamite? One Ben Greene -- more familiar to local government-watchers as one of the faces on the dais as a member of the Durham Planning Commission, the quasi-governmental body that hears and recommends whether to approve or deny zoning and comprehensive plan changes.

This morning, Greene finds himself on a different side of the developer-government line, appearing before the Board of Adjustment later this morning to try to win approval for his project to move forward.

And what infill development project would find itself without possible community opposition? Greene may face this, too, courtesy of neighbors with parking and trash concerns.

BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for January 26, 2009

In the news this morning and this weekend:

• Eighty persons including a number of newly-elected Council of State members attended the Durham Committee on the Affairs of Black People's annual meeting yesterday; N.C. NAACP president the Rev. William Barber encouraged attendees to continue fighting for economically and socially progressive legislation. Meanwhile, the DCABP's chair, Dr. Lavonia Allison, will be the first woman to serve as grand marshal of Durham's Martin Luther King, Jr. parade this Saturday; the confab starts at noon on Fayetteville St. (H-S #1, #2)
• Residents in Trinity Heights -- the neighborhood strip just north of Duke's East Campus and south of Walltown -- are continuing to advocate for an end to what they describe as out-of-control frat parties on Clarendon and Onslow Streets, one of which was described to have led to a confrontation between students and local police. Besides a long-term desire to see Duke build fraternity houses on campus, the neighborhood association is asking Duke to have its own campus police more actively patrol the neighborhood to relieve pressure on Durham's P.D. (H-S #1, #2)
• The H-S' Monica Chen is featuring an interesting series on the history, present and future of Research Triangle Park. Today's piece notes that the suburban nature of the park presents some challenges for future re-use, and that while RTP is at times the "name" that brings companies to the state and the Triangle, many end up settling in office parks and other nearby locations. One plus to job cuts at Nortel and elsewhere: given that the Park is almost out of developable land, the re-availability of sites may allow for some increased density and more transit-oriented redevelopment in some of the older Durham Co. portions of the Park. (H-S #1, #2)
• Durham may ask the General Assembly for a specific exemption to the law that forbids municipalities from negotiating with public-sector unions in order to allow the City to directly manage the DATA transit service instead of using a shell management corporation. (H-S)

Residents to take third look at neighborhood streetscape plans this week

We've had a couple of passes in the last few months looking at the neighborhood streetscape design plans for the five areas in the Bull City targeted for sidewalk, lighting, and roadway renovations.

Consultants from EG&G Group unveiled working drafts in the fall for the five districts -- plan that drew generally positive reaction from neighborhoods, though the follow-up meeting for the Fayetteville St. streetscape project brought some dust-up from local residents concerned, in the words of the N&O's Jim Wise, that '"improvement" -- or even "sidewalk cafe" -- sounds a whole lot like "urban renewal."'

Of course, these streetscape efforts are funded only for the planning portion; no construction funds have yet been found, though millions of dollars for the project are in the City's wishlist for Federal infrastructure spending as nearly ready-to-build projects.

Still, there's no time like the present to figure out what work should be done on these sites. Learn the latest on the project at one of these five information sessions:

• Fayetteville Street Project (Hayti Heritage Center, 804 Old Fayetteville Street), Monday, January 26, 2009, at 6 p.m.
• North Mangum Street and Corporation Street Intersection Project (UDI Community Resource Center, 800 North Mangum Street), Tuesday, January 27, 2009, at 6 p.m.
• East Main Street Project (Refiner's Fire Community Church, 1003 East Main St.), Monday, February 2, 2009, at 6 p.m.
• West Chapel Hill Street Project (Community Family Life & Recreation Center at Lyon Park, 1309 Halley Street), Tuesday, February 3, 2009, at 6 p.m.
• Angier Avenue and Driver Street Intersection Project (Angier Avenue Baptist Church, 2101 Angier Avenue), Wednesday, February 4, 2009, at 6 p.m.

Incidentally, if you're going to attend one of these meetings, you could do a lot worse for prepwork than reading local real estate development pro Tony Sease's critique of the plans -- for their failure to narrow the "curb-to-curb" space, leaving the roads themselves excessively-wide and likely encouraging high speeds discouraging to pedestrians, while also failing to provide room for plantings significant enough to offer cover to walkers and retail browsers.

Also, see our coverage of the Fayetteville St. and Angier/Driver plans from earlier this fall at BCR.

Schools take $3.1 million reduction after all -- it was stuck in the lottery couch cushions?

Climax, meet anti.

It seems like it was just yesterday that County Manager Mike Ruffin proposed a $3.1 million intrayear reduction in funding for Durham Public Schools this year -- a reduction that led the school board, key DPS administrators, and parents to turn out in force with bright blue signs opposing the cuts.

And, well, it almost was yesterday -- two weeks in fact; January 11, to be precise -- that the tumultuous Board of County Commissioners meeting saw this heated debate, with the schools insisting that a $3.1 million cut from local funding to the district's $369 million budget would impact a wide range of services, with the district likely forced to take dramatic action to avoid impact on direct classroom instruction.

After a long debate, the BOCC sent Ruffin and DPS superintendent to the table to hammer out a middle ground between the $3.1 million cut sought by the county manager and the $1 million that Harris was proposing.

And the two leaders have in fact worked out a compromise position after personal negotiations.

The compromise amount?

$3.1 million.

Chapel Hill chuckle o' the day

From the N&O: It looks like some of our Chamber of Commerce types down in the hill of chapel to the south of the Bull City might be feeling a bit tweaked over the urban revitalization happening in Durham and Raleigh--

"You're rich, you're mostly white, you're the slowest-growing area [in North Carolina] that isn't going backward," [Ted Abernathy of the Southern Growth Policies Board] said. "Your housing is the highest priced."

"You used to be the coolest place," he said.

But in recent years, Durham and Raleigh have been revitalizing their downtowns, giving residents and businesses less reason to come to Chapel Hill.

Aaron Nelson, president of the Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce, acknowledged Chapel Hill has lost its edge.

Durham's "American Tobacco [complex] can eat our lunch," he said. "WUNC Radio broadcasting from American Tobacco kills me every time."

Tip to Chapel Hill: keep kicking out town institutions like the Somerhill Gallery -- which was literally forced out of the Eastgate Shopping Center by its owner, only to find a much more attractive, much larger home in downtown Durham -- and we'll keep the trend moving, no?

Seriously, what is there that's interesting in Chapel Hill? OK, A Southern Season is worth a visit, but is there really anything else worth stopping there for?

(It's an honest question; the wife and I have lived in Durham for several years but we go to Raleigh more often than we do Chapel Hill. Every time we've been into Orange Co., we've found Carrboro compelling but Chapel Hill just sort of there, a bit staid.)

Sitar to roll out new Indian restaurant with free buffet, noon-3pm today

Sitar India Palace has been a fixture on the Durham scene for about ten years, serving up Indian cuisine in the one-time Regency Plaza across from South Square.

They remain pretty much the last business open in Regency Plaza, which is under renovation by Charlotte-based Hawthorne Retail Partners as a mixed-use development hoped to debut in spring 2010.

And while they're keeping their location on US 15-501's eastern side open, it'll primarily become a catering-oriented site with the opening today of the new Sitar Indian Cuisine restaurant in a former steakhouse on the western side of 15-501 a few blocks north of the current location.

The H-S' Monica Chen reports this morning that Sitar will have a free Indian buffet today from noon to 3pm to celebrate their grand opening. And hey, Mayor Bell will reportedly be in attendance, so feel free to get your lobbying in with your vindaloo.

The new site it located at 3630 Durham Chapel Hill Blvd.

City fathers fear feathered fowl friends a foul idea?

The long debate over urban chickens -- hens, to be specific -- continues to be cooped up in work sessions and staff offices, while continuing to show what both the N&O and H-S' beat reporters have noted to be an acute racial divide on the Council over the matter.

The most recent encounter came yesterday, with the City Council continuing to debate changes to the proposal that could essentially require residents seeking to house hens in their backyards to get permission from their neighbors -- creating essentially a veto opportunity over any one resident's ability to keep hens at their house.

Durham remains one of only two municipalities in North Carolina whose city codes expressly forbid keeping chickens; our beige-tinted neighbor Cary is the other.

Barry and I interviewed Frank Hyman of the DurhamHENS (Healthy Eggs in Neighborhoods Soon) group advocating for the change on "Shooting the Bull" last night; listen to the show to find out more about why Frank is supporting the change, and what some of the challenges are. (The interview with Frank starts about 9 minutes into the show.)

BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for January 23, 2009

• Shocking! Well, OK, it's not. Some bond-funded projects continue to lag behind even after the City's spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on outside consulting to improve the timeliness of these capital efforts. 105 projects are on track, with 44 behind. Out of those 44, two-thirds alone are park projects -- an area of capital projects that's had past delays, as we looked at in analyzing last winter's Capital Projects Advisory Committee report. (H-S)
• Durham's school board projects the need for two additional elementary schools in growing Southwest Durham by 2014, as elementary schools in general are seeing a growth in student population. Board members also expressed concern about Durham's "pockets of poverty" contributing to too many local schools having high free and reduced lunch rates, and promised to "look at ways to alleviate that problem." (H-S)
• The Durham auto manufacturing plant owned by AW North Carolina will furlough 25% of its work force; the firm manufactures automatic transmission parts for Toyota, which isn't immune from the issues facing the Detroit Three. (H-S) Meanwhile, Coastal Federal Credit Union will close its North Pointe branch due to slow traffic. (H-S)
• City officials remain split on whether to get behind the "bullet bill" backed by Durham activist the Rev. Mel Whitley. The bill would require a permit to buy ammunition, just as is required for a gun purchase. City officials seem less worried about the (predictable) organized opposition from the gun lobby supporters than by the fact that the bill's never gained traction in the General Assembly in recent sessions, anyway, with the mayor and others debating whether to spend political capital on the subject. (H-S)
• Duke alum Bill Werber, who at 100 years of age was the oldest living former Major League Baseball player -- he played on the Yankees at one point with Babe Ruth -- died in Charlotte on Thursday. The N&O has a remembrance.