Bull City Rising

Duke comes under fire from bike/ped activists over Prez's commute, architect comments

As referenced in today's Fishwrap, Messrs. Schoenfeld and Wynn -- the two Duke VPs that emerged, through a process of cell division, from the position formerly held by John Burness -- reassured City Council yesterday of Duke's strong relationship with the community, and the economic impact that the university has on the Bull City.

I don't think many bicycle and pedestrian activists showed up for the Thursday Council confab, though... and that might have been a good thing.

The bike/ped mailing list has been filled with blistering commentary this week in the wake of a Duke Chronicle story about President Richard Brodhead -- and after a rather contentious-sounding meeting between Duke architect John Pearce and the City's bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee.

BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for April 24, 2009

• City manager Tom Bonfield is calling for a top-to-bottom review of Durham's rec centers -- a $2.3 million annual operating expense, set to rise by $1m/year when new centers in Walltown and NECD open their doors in a year or so. The H-S quotes City Councilfolk Eugene Brown and Cora-Cole McFadden as differing on the prioritization of city-edge rec centers called for in an early 2000s plan, but it sounds like Bonfield's looking for a broader-scale review of the intensity and frequency of use of current facilities and the possibility of more partnerships with Durham Public Schools to use their facilities after-hours. (H-S)
• Meantime, Duke veeps Mike Schoenfeld and Phail Wynn used Thursday's Council session to extol the university's $3.4 billion impact on the local economy, replying in part to the question (unsaid yesterday) of why payment in lieu of taxes (PILOT) funds don't flow to Durham the way they do some other cities with large private universities. The officials -- whose offices have been dealing from blowback over the sometimes mutable-seeming stance over closing two public roads to through traffic -- emphasized the poor survey methodology of a poll by The Princeton Review citing Duke-Durham relations as one of the worst town-gown partnerships in the U.S. (H-S)
• Meanwhile, Duke Law and Fuqua rose in their respective US News rankings this year, to 10th and 12th place respectively, with the med school remaining at 6th place for research. Pratt ranked relatively low in the national standings (35th) for a university of Duke's stature, though biomed/bioengineering programs came in 4th. A number of social sciences and humanities programs also ranked highly. (H-S)
• Durham CAN will discuss the results of its reviews of DPS facilities with school board members, administrators, and parents during the community activism organization's meeting on May 3 at Pearsontown Elementary (3:30 pm). (H-S)
• Applicants interested in opening a new charter school in Durham Co. didn't make the list of finalists announced by the state in Raleigh yesterday. (N&O)

BCR's aside on that last point: North Carolina has a cap on the number of charter schools allowed in the state; their performance has at times broken down along the same predictable socio-economic lines as public schools, with charter schools drawing wealthy populations showing exceptional performance, and those targeting underserved, low-SES populations being threatened at times with revocation of their charter status.

Gee, isn't that surprising. Haven't we learned anything from segregation?

CPAC report shows 87% of capital project dollars at green-light status -- but parks still lag significantly

The City Council will today get its quarterly project status update from the Capital Program Advisory Committee -- a citizen's group appointed by the Council that keeps its finger on the pulse of how Durham is doing with its major construction and other capital projects, bond-funded and otherwise.

The bad news: despite major investments in consulting help and internal process renewal, just over 30% of capital projects currently show a "yellow" or "red" light status on the green/yellow/red tracking system CPAC uses to evaluate progress. A full quarter of all projects are in red status, defined as "major problems" having been encountered.

That said, when measured by the dollar value of projects, the numbers look significantly better; 87% of projects show a green-light status, with 11% drawing a red light of stoppiness.

Or is that sloppiness?

In any event, long-time BCR readers will remember that last time we looked at where CPAC was in tracking project statuses, there were a disproportionate number of park projects showing delays.

We wish we could say that Parks & Rec was doing better this time around. But if we did, we'd be lying.

BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for April 23, 2009

Before we get into today's Fishwrap, a programming announcement: David Linck, a publicist for the film "Main Street," is tentatively scheduled to join Barry and me on "Shooting the Bull" tonight (7:30pm, WXDU 88.7 FM or wxdu.org). The podcast section here at BCR has also been updated with recent programs, including last week's show with the Independent Weekly's Matt Salaña (on Jordan Lake) and Trinity Design/Build's Sara Lachenman (on historic preservation and the upcoming Morehead Hill home tour for Preservation Durham.)

In the funnies this morning:

• The Dept. of Social Services is asking to be exempted from the County's hiring freeze, given the high level of demand for its county, state and Federally-funded human services in the recession. DSS has already received some exemptions for high-level directors to replace retiring staff or those moving elsewhere. (H-S)
• D.P.D. has moved in to the new District 3 substation at Shannon Rd. and MLK Jr. Pkwy., relocated from the decaying Lakewood shopping center to a site they note is more central to the thirty square mile district. (H-S)
• Your eyes aren't deceiving you... yes, that's actual retail construction happening down on 15-501. The second phase of Patterson Place closed at $17m+ construction loan last week, opening the door for a SpringHill Suites by Marriott, Duke Medicine clinic, and 35,000 sq. ft. of retail space, with an AT&T "Mobility Experience" store already signed. (N&O)
• Bids for recently-released NCDOT projects funded with Federal stimulus dollars came in 25% below expectations in Wake and Johnston, continuing a cycle of eager roadbuilders looking for work. (N&O)
• Mayor Bell's first challenger for the mayoral race has announced: Steven Wiliams, who entered and then withdrew before the primary back in '05, will hold an announcement this Sunday at 3pm at the CCB Plaza downtown. The N&O notes he's a '92 grad of Hillside who earned his undergraduate degree from St. Augustine's College in Raleigh. Still, with little track record, we here at BCR would chalk this one up to a "lottery candidate" -- that is to say, one whose best chances come if hizonner wins PowerBall shortly before the election and withdraws. (N&O)
• The N&O's Jack Hagel also takes a nice look at office vacancies in the Triangle. More firms vacated space this past quarter, a rarety in this usually-healthy real estate market, but the kibosh on new office space construction caused by the current credit freeze could actually help, some speculate, by allowing the already-under-construction new space and existing vacant space to be absorbed as the economy turns around. Still, with an office vacancy rate at 16% of the Triangle's 43m square feet, there's space to be had. (N&O)
• NCCU's jazz ensemble will get to perform at the prestigious Newport Jazz Festival this summer -- a real feather in the group's cap. Durhamite and renowned jazz saxophonist Branford Marsalis is currently an artist-in-residence at Central, sez the H-S.

Goodbye, "Avenue of the Arts"... hello, "Performing Arts Place?"

"Avenue of the Arts," we hardly knew ye. It took more than a century to get used to your once and current name; now we've had you less than a month, and lost you once more.

We riffed here back in February on a City permit filed by the City itself to change Vivian St.'s name to, we presumed at the time, the "Avenue of the Arts."

Well, City Council today will get a look at the idea. And now, the name has gotten officially designated as:

"Performing Arts Place."

From the staff report:

This request is to permanently rename 542.6 linear feet of Vivian Street, located east of Blackwell Street and west of South Mangum Street, to Performing Arts Place. The right-of-way renaming is being proposed to give the Durham Performing Arts Center and future tenants of this street an exclusive address which would invoke the artistic nature of the theater and the growing cultural presence in Durham.

No potential impacts have been identified with the proposed street closing from staff reviewers.  Staff has received no contacts from citizens concerning the renaming.

Council will consider the matter during its work session; look for it to be on the next Monday night meeting's agenda, probably as a consent item.

If "Avenue of the Arts" -- the name it originally looked like would stick to the street -- was a bit pretentious for a tenth-of-a-mile stretch, "Performing Arts Place" seems a bit unimaginative... kind of rings like all those insipid educational names some bright-bulb chose for the Chancellor's Ridge subdivision in SoDur. (Which features groaners like "Intern Way" and "Baccalaureate Blvd." for a mass of impervious surface and tract homes right next to the controversial 751 assemblage.)

We here at BCR say, if you're going to change the name of the darned street, can't you at least make it something punchy? Our suggestions:

• "Avenue Q" -- just think of the cross-marketing synergies when that hit Broadway show comes to town!
• "Struever Way" -- given the way things seem to be going for the troubled Baltimore developer, it might just end up the only permanent reminder of the firm's time in the Bull City.
• "Rocket Escape Way" -- put a funny car at the western end of Vivian with a jet engine attached. Engage engine and slam into the County jail at the eastern end. Presto -- you've got escapees, along with one pretty seriously dinged driver.
• "Chapel Hill Ave." -- well, we have all kinds of other roads named after our southern neighbor, it seems. What's wrong with one more?

Durham gears up for Saturday's Earth Day Festival, including skate park groundbreaking

Today may be Earth Day, but it's a day Durham will celebrate in fuller fashion this Saturday, at the 2009 Earth Day Festival downtown, centered at the CCB Plaza near the SunTrust building.

The Earth Day parade -- in which, unlike the holiday parade each fall, no motor vehicles are allowed to participate (human powered only) -- starts at 3:30pm, the centerpiece of the entire noon to 5 p.m. festival.

There's a one-time only addition to this year's festival, too: a groundbreaking event for the new downown skateboard park (hat tip to NBC 17 for noticing). The park, set to be located in the southeastern corner of Durham Central Park along Rigsbee near the new D.P.D. District 5 substation, will break ground in May and is expected to be open in mid-Fall. (Read more on the design plans for the skate park here at BCR.)

Also new this year: a bike valet service to encourage festival participants to bicycle to downtown for the celebration. Billed by organizers as being what they think to be the first time a "bike valet" service has been offered in the Triangle, the valet service will run throughout festival hours, staffed by members of the Durham Bicycle & Pedestrian Advisory Commission.

BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for April 22, 2009

Voluntary retirements at Duke... mixed news for each side in the Jordan Lake/751 assemblage debate... and plenty more happening in today's Fishwrap.

• Duke is hoping as many as 700 hourly workers age fifty and over will accept voluntary retirement plans as part of a cost cutting measure -- though the university hasn't yet announced any plans for similar offerings to salaried employees. The university also noted it's found ways to meet as much as half of its stated goal to reduce the operating budget by $125 million per year; the H-S notes that the university expects to know by "late summer or early fall" whether layoffs will be needed to meet the goal. (H-S, plus background article)
• Two updates on the 751 assemblage near Jordan Lake at the heart of a controversial critical watershed map change. Cumberland Co.'s planning director joined that of Buncombe in supported the position of Durham county attorney Chuck Kitchen that the change needed to be vetted through a public hearing process, something Durham's BOCC voted to do on a heated 3-2 vote last week. Meanwhile, the Division of Water Quality is saying the developer-funded surveys submitted that call for relocating the critical watershed line "appeared to be performed in accordance with accepted land surveying practices," part of a missive from DWQ to the Environmental Management Commission, which will consider next month a citizen's petition to overturn the DWQ's February ruling accepting the maps. (H-S #1, #2, Indy)
• The state House voted 77-40 yesterday to approve a local transit tax option, defeating last-minute changes to the bill that would have allowed funding for roads, too. (HOV and bus lanes on roads could be funded by the measure.) If it passes the state Senate, the most likely timeframe would be a 2010 ballot, local pols say, given worries over passing any new taxes in the current economic times. (N&O)
• NCCU is seeing a 62% decline in donations, a challenge for the HBCU, which has a small endowment and relies on contributions to support its programs. Corporate giving in particular is down 80%, while foundation gifts ceased almost entirely this year. (H-S)
• The N&O takes a look at the farm-to-market movement, with an emphasis on forthcoming downtown restaurant Eno, which will make heavy use of resources at the owner's Coon Rock Farm. Bizarrely, the article notes that Eno's owners "plan to announce the chef for Eno this spring" -- despite that chef, Marco Shaw, going on-record to a fellow McClatchy-owned property in Portland, Ore. to say that he'd be the chef at Eno. (N&O)
• On the plus side, N&O writer and local historian Jim Wise takes a nice look at the history of the Wright Machinery Co. on Holloway St. in East Durham; the plant, which once was involved in tobacco manufacturing and moved into armaments and even aerospace and astronautics -- parts made at the plant went to the moon and are on the International Space Station -- before closing in '05. The plant will soon house the District 1 D.P.D. substation. (N&O)

Durham Art Walk completes another run amidst somewhat uncertain economic conditions

This past weekend saw beautiful weather for a spring day, and visitors downtown saw crowds of people streaming from the Durham Farmers' Market up Foster St. to the various sites of the Durham Art Walk on a sunny Saturday morning.

It was time for another Durham Art Walk, the twice-yearly event that opens up sites in Durham's urban core for art exhibitions and sales by practitioners of the fine arts. 1,300 visitors came into the Durham Arts Council on Saturday, another 800 on Sunday -- a figure that the Council adjusts upwards by 30% to count Art Walkers who don't stop by the center.

As gorgeous as the weekend was, however, the current economic conditions have made the future of the Durham Art Walk a bit cloudy.

The Durham Arts Council (DAC), who puts on the biannual event, relies heavily on private contributions which are down severely this year, and the lack of staffing and funding for the event is taking a toll.  Barclay McConnell, artist services manager for DAC, told BCR in an interview this weekend that the organization is considering scaling Durham Art Walk from twice a year to once a year.

BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for April 21, 2009

• Crews for the movie "Main Street" filmed in downtown Durham yesterday, transforming an Orange St. storefront into a faux restaurant and the Self-Help-renovated building at the southeast corner of Main and Corcoran into a "Hotel," as Gary notes. The H-S takes a look at the 24-year-old producers, and reveals that the film, currently lacking distribution, will likely be shopped around at Cannes for an outlet. There'll be more filming in downtown Durham later this week -- including, we understand, some interior shots in City Hall. (H-S)
• Attendees of a "smart growth" summit for the Triangle area yesterday were heartened by ongoing signs of more support in Raleigh for a regional local-option sales tax to help pay for transit -- and emphasized that state and Federal dollars were likely to follow any such hometown funding. (H-S)
• The N&O takes a look at the rock-bottom price tags on municipal and other governmental construction these days, noting that Durham's human services complex bid this year came almost $20m under its $75m price tag, and that the county was able to borrow short-term funds for the project at a ".065 percent" interest rate. (N&O)
• The purchase of dermatological company Stiefel by GlaxoSmithKline will lead three top execs of the acquired firm to relocate to the Triangle, portending possible future growth here for the currently Miami-based firm. Stiefel already has 160 employees working in RTP off T.W. Alexander Dr. (TBJ)
• The SBI is investigating whether some funds used by a Sheriff's Office undercover officer working the drug beat were "mishandled." (H-S)

Wal-Mart SuperCenter opens in June; will Roxboro Rd. W*M close then?

The H-S noted in this weekend's Business Buzz section that the long-under-construction Wal-Mart SuperCenter in northeast Durham County is set to open its doors this June -- with the fate of the existing Wal-Mart store on Roxboro Rd. unknown at this point.

Regardless of what one thinks of Wal-Mart, there can be little question that the arrival of the mega-discounter could have a significant impact on retail in the I-85 corridor in general, and for the sleepy corner of Durham it inhabits off of Glenn School Road in particular.

The store, developed by WRS Realty Inc. -- which has been at the center of discussions around a possible Wal-Mart development on the Kentington Heights neighborhood property near Southpoint -- will be the county's first Wal-Mart superstore, joining two SuperTargets.

And it arrives in a seemingly strange site from a Durham perspective off of what's essentially little more than an old country road near two I-85 exits, steps from the Granville Co. line. Though perhaps not so strange, then again, when one considers the retailer's similar presence to Durham's south on I-85, with Hillsborough and Mebane both drawing stores into what had been fairly quiet interstate highway interchanges.