Tonight's City Council meeting brings us back around to a controversial Fayetteville St. incentives project (PDF), one getting its second Monday night hearing -- but one which promises to go no more quietly tonight than it did last time around.
One local wag told me the other day that if the 751 Assemblage project demonstrated turmoil and division within a largely-white Durham community finding itself torn between environmental concerns and economic considerations, the debate over the incentives to the Mozella McLaughlin-owned building on Fayetteville St. that houses The Know bookstore presented the opposite, if not equal, number for Durham's politically-connected black middle class.
It's a story that, like a prism, looks different to outside observers depending on the nature of the light shined through it.
On the one hand you have business and property owners with close ties to political elites, advocating for the nonagenarian McLaughlin and her children to receive a City economic incentives package to rehab a building she has long owned near NC Central, a space she dreams will become home to a jazz and cultural center and restaurant that can draw patrons from far and near.
She's backed in this advocacy by property owners like the Hesters -- themselves the past recipients of City financial support for at least one of their shopping centers, and who were two of many to try their hands at the long-struggling Rolling Hills development -- who've long argued that Fayetteville St. has been overlooked in the City's revitalization, and who have pressed hard for streetscape renovations and investment in the corridor.
(City-funded streetscape plans now exist, but the into-the-eight-digits cost for this and four other districts currently lacks funding.)
On the other hand, you've got Bruce Bridges and his supporters. Bridges rents from McLaughlin for his bookstore The Know, described by some -- though, importantly, far from all -- in the black community as a pillar of retail on Fayetteville St.
Besides a black-themed bookstore with a lean towards underrepresented subjects of interest to African-Americans, Bridges provides jazz nights and brings in food into his business for what's widely seen as one of the key private-sector draws in retail and culture on Fayetteville St.
If this sounds like what McLaughlin is imagining, well, Bridges would probably say you're right -- and would note too that the smaller space promised by the building owners for the bookstore and the relocation of food and jazz outside of his space to other parts of the building would make his business not economically viable.
It's a hard matter, one whose inherent tensions and contradictions seem to be best demonstrated, quite unintentionally, in this paragraph:
The prevailing theme throughout this study is one of preservation -- of our historic neighborhoods, historic structures, traffic patterns and most of all, our human capital through the social connections that have sustained this community for the past century. Development initiatives, while desirable, must be tempered by this community’s desire for stability, controlled growth and neighborhood preservation – with preferences and incentives going first to serve neighborhood interests and benefit neighborhood residents.
It's a text that speaks directly to the matter at hand, it seems, with questions of preserving "social connections" while providing "incentives" that should benefit local residents and interests -- as opposed, one might think, to outside third parties or developers. And above all, "development initiatives" shouldbe weighed against "stability."
The source of the text? A draft copy of the Historic Fayetteville Street Corridor Neighborhood Master Plan -- a document whose leading champions have been Larry and Denise Hester, two of the most vocal proponents in turn of this incentives deal.
One can assume the Hesters and their allies in the pro-incentives camp wouldn't see this as necessarily a contradiction; after all, they would point out, the McLaughlins are pillars of the community, local business owners seeking to improve a parcel of real estate in a way that will further better the community.
Larry Hester in particular pointed out at the last City Council discussion of the incentives deal that Bridges is a renter in the space -- not an owner. And that, Hester said, meant his concerns really were a private matter, not a matter the Council should care about.
Personally, I can well undertstand the desire of those advocating for the incentives to see a fair shake for Fayetteville St. Just as I've supported the streetscape improvements as necessary to draw investment in residences and business alike, incentives deals for private businesses are an important tool the City has to spur neighborhood development.
In that light, it's been terrific to watch as Joseph Bushfan and his investors have worked to rehab structures in the Angier/Driver corridor to become a TROSA-operated grocery store, or to see Wendy Clark turn a vacant, decaying structure on Gilbert St. into affordable office space for non-profits and small businesses.
Yet there is an element that is seemingly impossible to separate from this debate, no matter who much some might argue that a landlord-tenant relationship is for the private sphere, not the public one. Neither the Bushfan nor Clark projects displaced existing, tax-paying businesses.
The specter that City dollars might lead to a long-time business closing is one hanging over at least one Council member, while another has fretted about the economic viability of the plan, with a pro forma that assumes $13/sf. rental rates and proposes what looks to be a considerable (and pricy) renovation to a structure surrounded by underutilized retail structures.
The part that I find myself focusing back on time and again, though, is the question of The Know. It's reputation outside the black community is as one of the most successful black retail businesses within that sphere. Why, then, the seeming disregard over its future?
In talking with friends and contacts within Durham's black community, the best explanation I can find is that Bridges doesn't appear to have, well, built bridges within the community. The bookstore seems to have a reputation as being unique, with all the accompanying baggage -- cluttered, some say; not kept up with the times, say others.
I get the sense that many who are active in this debate would like to see The Know stick around, but that the smaller footprint and scope to be offered in the space might just represent the landlord's way of trying to (from their perspective) improve the overall experience that the business brings today, precisely by bringing in new operator for the non-core food and music businesses.
But in doing so, the McLaughlins would seemingly bypass the incumbent renter in a big way -- so big, he's not sure he can stay in business.
.....
It's a sticky situation, and not one for which there is an easy out for Council.
Personally, I expect that tonight you'll see advocates for the project raise the same tales of equity that have come up in past incentive discussions over this project.
My hope? I'd like to see the debate move past that. There should be a policy discussion about the propriety of the City providing investment dollars to projects that currently have tax-paying businesses, as opposed to those impacting strictly vacant buildings.
To my thinking, the claim of bias in offering the Gilbert St. and Angier/Driver projects incentives but raising questions about the McLaughlin project is a red herring. If the McLaughlin building was unoccupied, the situations would match -- but it isn't. (Same goes for American Tobacco, West Village, and other non-tax-performing vacant buildings that have earned incentive dollars.)
Mind you, I'm not saying the City should avoid that incentive investment necessarily. But it should go into it with both eyes open.
If the City does decide that currently-occupied structures are appropriate for incentive investment -- well, then, Larry Hester's argument that the issues between Bridges and his landlord should be left for the private sphere alone is exactly on point.
But let's have the debate on this kind of investment before jumping to that conclusion.
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