Bull City Rising

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.” 

Duke bid on tobacco warehouse could extend the university’s downtown footprint

Durham County is putting the old Carmichael warehouse up for sale, Ray Gronberg reported in Tuesday’s Herald-Sun, following Duke’s submission of a $6.8 million bid for the building. What does that mean for downtown Durham? 

Good things, according to Bill Kalkhof, the impresario of downtown Durham and the president of Downtown Durham Inc. 

“The county has a very solid offer that I think is a very fair offer for the property,” Kalkhof said. “And it’s being made by a great institution, and the offer can only get better from here.” 

The statutory process by which the property is being sold gives other interested parties 10 days from the date a formal notice of sale is published to submit upset bids. Such a bid must exceed the preceding offer by 5 percent. Each upset triggers a new advertisement and a new 10-day window for further bidding.

The county is not obligated to complete a sale. 

A transfer of the Carmichael, a tobacco drying and storage warehouse built by Liggett and Myers in 1926, has been brewing for years. The space is currently occupied by part of the county’s Department of Social Services. By 2013, those offices should be set to move into the finished Human Services Complex on East Main Street, which is already partially occupied. 

Blackstone announces major grant initiative to support new businesses

Some of the most prominent figures in the Triangle and the state joined forces Monday morning for the announcement of a new type of entrepreneurial incubator. 

The launch of the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network, held in Bay 7 of American Tobacco Campus, drew around 300 attendees. The network, described as the first regional integrated initiative, is being funded by a grant from the Blackstone Charitable Foundation. 

Steve Schwarzman, the co-founder, CEO and chairman of investment and advisory firm the Blackstone Group, predicted that the foundation’s investment would provide an enormous boost to the state’s economy. 

“In creating an ecosystem to support aspiring entrepreneurs, the Blackstone Entrepreneurs Network [is] expected to double the number of startups coming out of this region, attract venture capital at all stages, create approximately 17,000 jobs, attract over $800 million in venture capital, generate revenues of close to $5 billion and [have] countless secondary impacts on the local economy,” he said. 

“The potential is tremendous. The time is right, and the talent sitting in this room, [exemplified] by the heads of these universities and the Research Triangle, is really a remarkable group.” 

Renovated Chesterfield could continue downtown’s upturn

Just a few years ago, anyone who wanted to travel Main Street between downtown and Brightleaf Square had to pass through an urban dead zone. The tobacco factories and warehouses between the Downtown Loop and North Duke Street, seemingly devoid of  life, loomed threateningly on either side of the street. 

It’s not like that today, of course. The mixed-use West Village project now appears to be thriving, and a city streetscaping project has furnished motorists with smooth pavement and pedestrians with attractive sidewalks on either side. Day and night, Pop’s restaurant and the West End Wine Bar both draw customers to an area that was once a depressing monument to this city’s defunct tobacco economy. 

But one very prominent spot was not so welcoming, according to a member of the Durham County Board of Commissioners: the corner of Duke and Main, where the still-empty Chesterfield Building looms. 

“I know at night that block there can seem, you know, dark and very vacant,” said Ellen Reckhow, the board’s vice chairwoman. “I’ve walked it after dark in that area, and it’ll be good to breathe some life into what I consider to be a critical block.” 

The resuscitation comes courtesy of developer Josh Parker, who is about to take control of the former cigarette factory. The project has been delayed a few months, as The Herald-Sun’s Laura Oleniacz reported this morning, but it is still on track to get under way by summer, Parker insists. 

“We’ve now set June 30 as our closing date, with construction to follow immediately thereafter,” Parker told Bull City Rising. “We were hoping to get started late April and just started running out of time.” 

Win two tickets to the Nasher Museum of Art's fifth-anniversary gala event after-party

Duke's Nasher Museum of Art is celebrating five years as part of the arts community in Durham and the Triangle. And they've been a part of the cultural elevation in the region, from the El Greco to Velázquez exhibition to hosting showings of works and writings by artists like Picasso and Warhol, to a far broader range of exhibits from emerging artists, modernists and more.

That celebration comes to focus on Nov. 13 with the Nasher's 2010 Benefit Gala, an annual event that raises funds for the museum in West Durham; proceeds support the Nasher's free K-12 and adult education and exhibition programs.

And thanks to the generosity of the Nasher, BCR readers have a chance to win a pair of tickets to the Gala's after-party. (Value of the tickets: $150 per.)

This year's benefit gala will honor Larry Wheeler, the director of Raleigh's North Carolina Museum of Art -- whose cultivation of friendship with the widow of securities firm Cantor Fitzgerald's founder led to the NCMA putting together one of the largest Rodin castings collections in the country, as the N&O noted earlier this year. Governor Perdue will also be in attendance.

A Gala-specific art installation by artist Jennifer Rubell (who'll be in attendance), interactive iShadow lighting from New York, and the after-party -- featuring DJ and music writer Dave Tompkins -- will be highlights of the night.

The pre-reception starts at 6:30pm on Saturday, Nov. 13, with the gala underway at 7:30 and the after-party kicking off at 9:30pm. Tickets to the full gala run $250-$500+ per person.

To enter to win BCR's pair of tickets in the contest, email info@bullcityrising.com to express your interest; a winner will be selected at random on Nov. 8. To find out more about the gala or to buy tickets, visit http://www.nasher.duke.edu/gala.

Durham startup takes one Duke team's needs national with collegiate sports software

The Durham Startup Seen: In the latest installment of our occasional series on startups and entrepreneurship in the Bull City, BCR correspondent Justin Landwehr tells us of a Bull City innovator looking to do for college athletic programs what Blackboard did for campus academics: become an indispensable tool for managing and coordinating the enterprise on and off the field.

Sometimes the best software ideas come from those everyday problems you grudgingly take for granted until that “a-ha” moment happens and you find a way to solve them.

Take Zach Maurides, a Duke graduate and founder of Durham’s Logisitical Athletic Solutions. 

Standing at 6 feet and 6 inches tall, Maurides played several offensive line positions for the Blue Devils from 2003 to 2007, starting at left guard his final two seasons. He went up against the likes of Virginia’s Chris Long – son of Pro Football Hall-of-Famer Howie Long, and second overall pick of the 2008 NFL draft – and Joe Anoa'i, a defensive tackle from Georgia Tech recently turned professional wrestler who Zach says was the most violent player he faced.

But before Maurides earned the starting role to protect the quarterback, he was helping his football team by developing the first sports communication platform of its kind. And the inspiration came from his own hard-learned experiences.

By his sophomore year, Maurides had experienced first-hand the communication problems that result when coaches, athletic trainers, academic support staff, team operators, and strength and conditioning coaches all vie for an 18 or 19 year-old’s time. 

“I was running a lot of stadium stairs because I would be late for a meeting or I would forget about a study hall. The core of that problem for me was time management. I had so many things to manage and I could not manage them all.” 

That same year, a class project called for students to conceptualize a web application that was in some way a service to others.

Zach Maurides had an idea. 

City Council votes to approve Durham Place apartment project

Another apartment complex is coming to the increasingly-developed area surrounding Duke's West Campus and its rapidly-expanding medical center.

The Durham Place project quickly passed City Council review unanimously, after a similarly uncontroversial hearing before the Durham Planning Commission.

Robinson Everett, Jr. -- son of the Duke Law and rental property scion, who passed away in summer 2009 -- is the property owner of the site, which backs up to several other apartment properties and would be across Kangaroo Dr. from the west Durham post office. The site is also just to the east of the Millenium Hotel.

A future land use map change for the property passed with no Council discussion and no public dissent. 

Anderson St. gets ready for repaving, bike lanes

Today marks the next step in Durham's rejiggering of central Durham streets to reflect an increased level of support for two-wheelers in accordance with the City's bike and pedestrian plans.

In this case, those two-wheelers move forward while four-wheel vehicles will lose parking spaces.

The City will kick off repaving on Anderson St. between Erwin Rd. and Campus Dr., the stretch that runs through Central Campus and near the Sarah B. Duke Gardens.

37 on-street parking spaces will come out and bike lanes will go in through the stretch, something the City says is another step in reducing greenhouse gases and the university says will help meet the school's own carbon-neutrality plans.

Plus, that's a major thoroughfare for bicyclists, for whom Campus Dr. is also a main artery for buses and bikes between East and West Campus.

The work is expected to last one week with minor vehicular delays; Anderson will also be resurfaced between Morehead Ave. and Duke University Rd. during the same period.

Welcome, student friends, to the Bull City show

This BCR post was originally published on Aug. 21, 2007. In honor of the arrival of Duke first-years today and of NCCU first-years and students last week, we're republishing this here with minor edits for their benefit -- and that of those many daily readers who've started reading BCR since then.

I wanted to dedicate this morning's post to Durham's newest residents -- its fair college students, matriculating at NC Central University or Duke University for the first time, perhaps, or returning for a further year of studies. 

The ride into town is a bit less magical than the Hogwarts Express (please do dodge the potholes, they're not just there for the aesthetics), but once you're here, I hope you'll join in in discovering the great things that the Bull City has to offer.

What's that, you say? There's great things in Durham? Surely I jest, you must think.

Well, I'm not kidding. But I understand where you're coming from. 

In the early 1990s, when I was touring college towns to make my own undergraduate choice, I took a look at Durham and headed right back to I-85. It wasn't until a number of years later that I realized that Durham was the right place for my wife and I to live, the place we felt most at home anywhere we'd lived on the East Coast. (I've chronicled that transformation on this earlier blog post.)

I think one of the most jarring things for many new residents of the Bull City -- particularly those hailing from Long Island, or Newton/Wellesley, or Plano, or Manassas, or the like -- is that Durham doesn't look like suburban America. Everything isn't tied up in neat subdivisions and strip malls, outparcels and freeways. 

Those things exist here, too, but there are actual streets and blocks that haven't (entirely) been torn up for re-development. There are old tobacco and textile factories that haven't been demolished, but instead form the bulk of the skyline.

There are poor people here -- wealthy people, too, but plenty of poor people. And African-Americans and Latinos and Asians and Native Americans, and Caucasians too.