Bull City Rising

"Bargain Furniture" building to get a Pit below, Underground above?

In one of the opening scenes of the dreadful, horrendous, abysmal, and also badly-acted film "Main Street" -- there's a reason, friends, you haven't seen this straight-to-DVD movie in theaters anywhere -- Amber Tamblyn's character drives her late-80s beater car up in front of the Bargain Furniture building downtown, checking her voicemail.

(If I were Tamblyn, I'd be waiting to hear a message from my agent, apologizing for booking me in a piece-of-crap film.)

The shuttered furniture store makes a perfect backdrop for Main Street's message of Southern discomfort, of old money gone broke and new money gone toxic; it's a symbol of desertion and loss and emptiness.

But no longer, it seems. There's activity downstairs and possibly up for the building, long controlled by Raleigh entrepreneur Greg Hatem and Durham architect and developer John Warasila.

In an ironic turnabout, the American Underground -- the incubator space that's nicely humanized a pit of a basement in the Strickland and Crowe buildings at Am'bacco -- may be expanding to the upper floors of 309 E. Chapel Hill St., while an a Durham location of the Raleigh barbecue restaurant called The Pit may be opening up on the ground floor.

Daisy Cakes signs lease on permanent home at 401A Foster St.

Durham's Daisy Cakes -- the popular food truck (well, food Airstream) eatery -- has found a home downtown for a brick-and-mortar expansion of its mobile cupcakes biz.

It's not the first Durham food truck to go wheel-free; that honor belongs to Only Burger. It's not the first downtown bakery to bloom from an irregular-hours Durham Central Park niche; that'd be Phoebe Lawless' awesome Scratch Bakery. And it's not the first "cupcake bar" announced for downtown Durham -- that'd be The Cupcake Bar from Durhamite and former Greenfire staffer Anna Branly and her sister, pegged for Scott Harmon's Five Points revamping.

But that doesn't make it any sweeter to learn that Daisy Cakes has formally signed a lease for space in 401A Foster Street, the industrial building rehabbed by Scientific Properties that's also home to Piedmont, Urban Durham Realty and the Bull City Arts Collaborative.

BCR's learned that the Foster St. space will be the home for Daisy Cakes, which put out a Kickstarter project last year looking to raise $20,000 in pledges towards a brick and mortar location. (The news, received from a source on Saturday, was confirmed in a tweet by the DaisyCakes folks that day.)

And the choice of locales shouldn't be a surprise, given that a Central Park-area location has been the goal for the small business' owners since they launched a fundraising campaign towards a permanent locale.

Bigger and better? Expanded CenterFest to feature broader spectrum of attractions, powered by wide-ranging gamut of ambitions

The state’s oldest arts festival will take a hiatus this year in order to reinvent itself. 

The 38th annual CenterFest Arts Festival will be held not in September (as the event Website still erroneously states) but in 2012, officials with the Durham Arts Council and partner organizations announced this morning. 

“We want to reshape it and grow it into something even more exciting that reflects the tremendous creativity going on in Durham today,” Sherry DeVries, the executive director of the council, said at the announcement. 

So what does that mean in practical terms? The expanded event will feature an enlarged name — tentatively, CenterFest: Festival of Arts, Music, Food and Creativity. That reflects what should be a broader palette of attractions. 

“Edible arts” will be among the added features, showcasing the city’s foodie culture as well as local brews and beer gardens and in-state wineries. Organizers also want to add hands-on features such as arts and fine craft demonstrations; more entertainment stages and venues; a Saturday-night “music party”; and “showcases for design, gaming and technology arts.” 

“There’s so many cool, creative things happening in Durham right now,” DeVries said. “We want to incorporate as many of those things as we possibly can in this process.” 

What would it take to make a revitalized CenterFest great?

Yesterday's announcement that CenterFest would be taking a year off to refocus, regroup and retool its mission seemed to me to be a great step towards making North Carolina's longest-running street arts festival a signature draw for a revitalized downtown Durham.

We may get more details in a press conference today (BCR's Matthew Milliken will have coverage), but what's known from yesterday's press release and media coverage is that CenterFest's pause is intended to allow the festival to be expanded with a goal of making it what organizers at the Durham Arts Council are calling a "national caliber signature event for Durham."

And while a visioning process is needed, a range of possibilities is evident; "edible arts" (presumably focused on Durham's burgeoning and nationally-known food scene), local beers and wines, craft and art demonstrations, and "showcases" for technology, gaming and design are all possible. 

So too could be higher-profile musical performing acts, including the possibility of major artists performing at the event.

It's a welcome change, and one that couldn't come at a better time.

The complaints about CenterFest in recent years have been pointed, focused in part on the banal, hot surface parking lot on Foster St. where the festival has moved in recent years. It provided a much-simpler logistical configuration for the DAC than was seen when the festival filled the inside-the-loop City Center district before, or took to the West Village area for a brief decampment during downtown streetscape work.

Eat, drink and be bullish: Downtown food scene expansion continues

Downtown Durham is continuing to add its menu of culinary offerings. The expansion is bringing full-fledged restaurants as well as other types of establishments. 

The latest addition to the downtown food scene arrived earlier this month at 405 E. Chapel Hill St. That’s the home of Reliable Cheese, a new fromagerie aimed at lovers of pressed milk curds. 

As owner Patrick Coleff, 34, was getting the store in order before its debut, he talked for a few minutes about his background. The Cleveland native originally had a day job in legal publishing and a night job as a line cook. “I loved what I was doing in the evening, hated with was doing in the day,” he said. 

Coleff decided to become a cheesemonger, which work he pursued for four years in New York City. He and his wife moved to Durham in 2009. 

The shop will stock a relatively small number of products — some 50 varieties of small-producer American and European cheeses, 20 different meats, 20 different wines (selected with assistance from the Wine Authorities) and 20 different beers, including at least one line of locally brewed beverages. 

Coleff, who will be hiring a part-time staffer, is making sandwiches at his shop. “I love deli sandwiches,” he said. “No one around here’s doing them.” 

And customers will be able to take advantage of his dairy expertise. Coleff is excited about exposing Durhamites to a number of new and exotic tastes. “I know a lot about cheese so they don’t have to,” he quipped. 

The shop will provide samples, sells cheese plates and will cut cheese to order. It has opened to at least one positive early notice from the Carpe Durham blog.  

Cleanup crews appear poised to start work on the Liberty Warehouse

Driving by the beseiged Liberty Warehouse this afternoon, I was pleased to see some new signage going up on the building.

Last time someone stuck a sign on the building, it was a "CONDEMNED" sticker in light of roof damage back in May -- damage that led several non-profits paying below-market rates to have to find new digs for their organizations.

Over a contentious few weeks, Greenfire Development faced condemnation proceedings based on leak complaints by at least one tenant; saw (a few weeks later) an actual partial collapse of the roof after a rain storm; found itself in the center of the bulls-eye for public criticism over the building's condition; and pressed back on accusers, noting it has rehabbed and brought many once-dilapidated buildings back to productive use, and saying that the Liberty's collapse was related to other roof problems that weren't apparent from visible inspection.

A demolition-by-neglect hearing set for June, though, was cancelled after Greenfire pledged to restore the building's condition.

Today's signage? Banners from BELFOR Property Restoration, which bills itself "the worldwide leader in disaster recovery and property restoration."

BELFOR -- whose portfolio includes a range of residential and commercial services, including drying and dehumidification, water and storm damage remediation, mold remediation, and environmental services -- has offices in Raleigh, Charlotte, Winston-Salem, Hickory and Wilmington.

BELFOR is the leading global restoration and repair company. We analyze and restore fire, water and storm damage of every kind and on any scale. We enable business and private customers to overcome the consequences of damage quickly, smoothly and cost-effectively. We invest every effort in minimizing business interruptions and getting things back to normal. We draw on more than 35 years of experience, use the latest technical equipment and employ highly qualified people. After all, our assignment is more than just a job: the survival of your assets is at stake.

For Durham, this seems to be a sign that the survival of one of the community's historic assets may be moving at least a bit forward.

A Leaf comes to Durham: N.C. State students adding to Central Park

A $30,000 Leaf should soon be alighting on the Great Lawn at Durham Central Park. 

“I think it’s going to energize the east side of the park,” said Ellen Cassilly. She’s a Durham Central Park board member and an advisor to a dozen North Carolina State University master’s of architecture students who have designed and will build the structure. 

It will double as a shady seating area and a performance stage, and it may also allow a projection screen to be hung from or mounted on its eastern side. The object will feature built-in wooden benches and a foundation and steps that can double as seats. The structure can also accommodate a canopy to block the sun; the canopy can be adjusted or removed as needed. 

 

The object measures approximately 37 feet long by 17 feet wide. The upright wooden fins that define but don’t enclose the “building” will stand some 14 feet tall. 

It’s been dubbed the Leaf due to the shapes mimicked by the collection of fins as well as the by concrete pad around which they will be arrayed. 

“Sculpturally, this thing is absolutely beautiful,” said Erik Mehlman, another advisor to the N.C. State class. 

“I’m still completely enamored of this,” he added. 

Angier/Driver streetscape project gets closer to being shovel-ready with 2011 start projected

When Durham city officials finished rebuilding downtown's streetscape a few years back -- a move that helped not only to improve aesthetics, but to prime the district for private-sector building improvements, space upfits and a range of new businesses -- many residents in near-downtown neighborhoods pressed anew for a share of infrastructural improvements, too, to spur on the same improvements.

Five different plans were designed, ranging from the low millions in areas like West Chapel Hill St., East Main St. and Old Five Points to the $30 million-plus tab for redoing a long stretch of Fayetteville St.

But as BCR's Rob Gillespie noted here last year, City officials decided in 2010 to prioritize the Angier/Driver corridor as a sole recipient of Durham's limited neighborhood streetscape revitalization funds, in an effort to show immediate impact, as opposed to several years' worth of necessary but intangible planning studies.

That move's had supporters along with detractors. But there's no denying one thing: it sure means that the City has something to get shovel ready. And along the way, it means Durham will avoid what a project consultant told a couple of dozen Durhamites tonight called a "patchwork quilt" approach to neighborhood business district fix-ups -- a patched sidewalk here, new curb there, new streetlights elsewhere.

Assuming that City Council supports the choice of an eventual low-bidder for the $2.5 million project in a likely late fall vote, the project should be under construction this year, with a summer 2013 finish.

One multi-million question stands out, though. Residents have wanted a streetscape that brings the advantages of downtown's renewal -- but is this still-nascent commercial district ready for the possible disruption that the work can bring? And is the City ready to support businesses through the transition.

Transit plans getting one more public review before board votes this month

It will be years, if ever, before a Triangle Transit train pulls into any station in Durham, Orange or Wake counties. But a plan for investing more than $2 billion in regional rail and bus transit is about to pull out of the station. 

The Durham County mass transportation investment plan could be adopted as soon as this month by leaders of three key groups: the Durham-Chapel Hill-Carrboro Metropolitan Planning Organization, which oversees transportation strategies; Triangle Transit, which operates DATA bus service in Durham as well as regional bus service, and which would likely operate any new rail system; and the Board of County Commissioners. 

The first two organizations will both consider the plan on June 22; county commissioners will hold public hearings on the plan itself and on a referendum for a half-cent sales tax on June 13. Commission action on either or both issues may come on June 27. 

Durham’s share of the plan would amount to about $1.4 billion. A quarter of the project revenue is expected to come from the government of North Carolina, half would likely come from the federal government, and the remainder would be paid by a combination of sources including the half-cent sales tax, vehicle registration increases of $10 and a rental car tax. 

The new levy would not apply to housing, food, medical, utility or gasoline purchases, thus somewhat blunting the regressive nature of the sales tax. 

Residence Inn ready to accommodate Trinity Park residents? Once-contentious negotiations seem near an end

A proposed hotel that once bitterly divided one of Durham’s tonier neighborhoods now seems closer to securing support from residents. 

On Wednesday evening, the Trinity Park Neighborhood Association board and a number of interested residents learned about a deal that a group of members has worked out with developers of the Residence Inn proposed for 1108 W. Main St. between North Buchanan Boulevard and Watts Street. 

While the presentation didn’t put every concern about the project to rest, it did result in a consensus that negotiators have struck an arrangement neighbors can accept. 

“This is such a huge credit to you who have negotiated this,” Laura Gutman, who lives about a block north of the hotel site on Watts, said after the deal was presented. “I mean, this is just night and day in what looks like an outcome. It’s just amazing when you think of ... the agony that the neighborhood went through fruitlessly.” 

She said that the deal “looks like an outcome” because it remains subject to a yet-to-be-scheduled vote by the neighborhood association board -- not to mention ultimate support from elected officials.

The negotiating process involved some give and take by both sides, with the developer agreeing to some big alterations to its initial plans. But as important as the process has been for this one project, it may have even more significance for future projects. 

This result, if it is finalized, will send a signal to other potential developers, said Dan Jewell. He’s a partner in the Coulter Jewell Thomas landscape architecture and planning firm, which dropped out of the Residence Inn project before the negotiations with the neighborhood began. 

“There can be a win-win situation” when developers go to work in Trinity Park, Jewell told others at the board meeting. “Because I’ve been involved in those groups where it’s always just ‘no, no, no,’ and it’s going to be a fight to the end... This is a going to be a great precedent.”