Bull City Rising

Updates: McPherson Townhouses, West Point Park in the Herald-Sun

The local press has updates in today's paper on two stories we've looked at here at BCR recently:

First, Monica Chen provides an update from Monday's design design review team looking at the McPherson Townhouses. As noted here last week, the response from neighbors to date was well described by the H-S as cautious optimism, with a representative of the Neighbors for Sustainable Development in Trinity Park citing positive elements of the design and the Trinity Park Neighborhood Association noting that a committee is reviewing the plans.

The townhouse proposal will next make its way to the Development Review Board. (Jim Wise from the N&O also has an update in today's edition.)

Also up: Ray Gronberg has the Herald-Sun's take on the debate over the 60-acre tract of land just south of West Point Park on the Eno, a site that's been at the center of a minor tempest over the dual possibilities of the city in partnership with other groups buying and preserving the open area -- or of the state doing so in exchange for control over the City-managed West Point Park.

New items from the story: City Councilman Mike Woodard notes the landowner's threat to sue local government if the land is downzoned (which would otherwise be one very, very low cost way of keeping dense development off the sensitive land.) Also, it looks like the landowner and her development partner have optioned land from a local church that would provide access to the land from Roxboro -- a development that makes it easier for the long-time property holder to develop the tract.

Most parties we've talked to, including City Councilwoman Diane Catotti, have signalled an openness to looking at the possibility of state control for the park, but given it seems the ongoing nature of the dialogue, most of the stakeholders involved aren't interested in giving too many specifics just yet on the idea. Expect significant caution from city staff and possibly officials over the prospect of giving up what local officials see as a jewel of the park system.

More on these as we learn about 'em.

Shooting the Bull: Podcast for July 20, 2008

In this week's edition of "Shooting the Bull," Barry Ragin and I chat with author Lewis Shiner, who stopped by the show to discuss "Black and White," his new novel set in Durham in the throes of urban renewal and the civil rights movement. Plus, we catch up on the proposed prepared meals tax and its odds for success. Thanks as always to the folks at WXDU for the opportunity to host this weekly show.

If you missed the Sunday night broadcast, you can download or listen to the show from the Internet Archive, or listen to it via this embedded player. You can also now subscribe to the podcast in iTunes, via WXDU's hosted podcast.

Indy weathering the economic downturn, adds to newsroom

Throughout the travails of the local mainstream media, the Indy has been on top of the story, from the tale of Paxton Media's bloody takeover of the Herald-Sun to cutbacks at the N&O.

So here at BCR, our eyebrows went up a couple of weeks ago when the Indy noted that writer Mosi Secret would be leaving the paper, and that the paper would evolve into a full-color publication that would "focus more on narrative stories, graphics and photography that rely more heavily on analysis and context rather than on the urgency of the news cycle," and that the stories in the Indy would increasingly be designed "to be portable across county lines."

Did this change portend financial challenges for the Triangle's celebrated alt-weekly, itself celebrating a quarter century of journalism in the community? A way, perhaps, of the paper positioning itself to a broader -- as in, not Durham/Raleigh/Chapel Hill/Carrboro-centric community, in order to gain more readers?

Not so, Indy editor Lisa Sorg noted in a recent interview, who noted that the Indy's changes are instead a way of recognizing the increased focus of the weekly throughout the state, given the publication's work last year in covering topics like labor issues in Smithfield factories and the controversial bio-lab proposed for Granville County.

"We're still doing the same in-depth stuff in the Triangle," Sorg said, "but we're not limiting ourselves to that." Instead, Sorg noted, the paper planned to "bring the stories so that anyone, anywhere can relate to them."

TBJ: Minor League Baseball still weighing corporate relo to Bull City

Friday's edition of the Triangle Business Journal features an interesting story by Lee Weisbecker on Durham's continued courtship of Minor League Baseball, an engagement that goes well beyond MiLB's role in operating and managing the renovated Durham Athletic Park.

Besides the ongoing planning for the Minor League Baseball fan experience museum -- a project which downtown sources say has strong feasibility, assuming the City can deliver financing for the construction itself, funded by the prepared meals tax -- the TBJ reports that a behind-the-scenes recruitment effort is underway to get the professional sports league to relocate its headquarters from Tampa Bay to Durham:

For the past 30 years, the headquarters of Minor League Baseball, MiLB, has been ensconced in a waterfront office in St. Petersburg, Fla. But the 40-person operation, which oversees 160 teams in the United States and 80 in Canada and Latin America, has only three years left on its lease in a building earmarked for demolition when work begins on a new stadium for Major League Baseball's Tampa Bay Rays.

"Our future in this building is limited," says MiLB Senior Vice President John Cook, who adds that, to date, "no serious discussions" about the future have taken place between his organization and movers and shakers in Durham.

At the same time, he doesn't call a third strike on the prospect. "There would be some potential," he says. "This is a fluid situation, and it's an interesting concept to discuss."

Durham has, of course, a strong cottage baseball industry already -- from the publication Baseball America, which relocated to Durham a quarter century ago, to the USA Baseball national amateur organization also based in the Bull CIty. (And of course, if you go back far enough, Durham was the HQ for MiLB, back in the early-mid twentieth century.)

One question that would be on everyone's mind: just where would MiLB set up its offices? The TBJ speculates that the fan experience museum, tentatively proposed for the northeast corner side of the ballpark, might be able to house MiLB offices.

Another logical likely party interested in leasing them space could be Hank Scherich of Measurement Inc. The educational testing company owner and sometimes downtown developer and investor has been gobbling up properties on Morris St., including the old Accent Hardwood Flooring office (which moved to Foster St.) and the single-family house next door to it.

Coupled with the parking lot and former Durham Farmers Market site, they now own the entire western side of a city block along Morris -- a perfect site for a much-rumored major development project. (Note the old DAP ballpark just north of the Scherich-controlled properties, which are outlined in red.)

The fulfillment of Minor League Baseball's interest in the DAP region would certainly cement the district's economic growth and direction -- something we're sure that the nascent investors in the area, a group that ranges from the often-acquiring Greenfire to local business owners like Scherich to Trinity Lofts developer and NYC planning director Alex Washburn, would love to see.

Shooting the Bull: Podcast for July 13, 2008

In this week's edition of "Shooting the Bull," Barry Ragin and I chat with Durham Convention and Visitors Bureau president Reyn Bowman on Durham's image, the DCVB's new crime comparative report, the prepared meals tax, and projects like the Minor League Baseball museum and Durham Performing Arts Center.

Plus, Barry and I touch on local news of the week, including the Struever Bros. construction controversy and the possibility of new hope for the Medical Arts Building downtown. Thanks as always to the folks at WXDU for the opportunity to host this weekly show.

If you missed the Sunday night broadcast, you can download or listen to the show from the Internet Archive, or listen to it via this embedded player. You can also now subscribe to the podcast in iTunes, via WXDU's hosted podcast.

H-S: Struever Bros. faces $1m in liens on American Tobacco work

Today's Herald-Sun has a very good two-article story by business reporter Monica Chen on a subject that's been turning up more and more grumbling of late in the downtown community: the financial health of the American Tobacco Phase II renovations, headed by Baltimore developer Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse.

As Chen points out, while other downtown developers have finished up their recent work and gotten their subcontractors paid in a fairly timely fashion, some subcontractors are claiming that SBER still owes them big time for their work since 2006 on the project.

The businesses claim that Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, the Baltimore-based company redeveloping the historic tobacco factory buildings, owed them a total of $1.3 million and more for work done from 2006 to 2008. Of that, the company has resolved about $343,000 with interest and attorneys' fees.

Ken Reiter, senior development director with Struever Bros., said the company will pay the rest upon completion of the Old Bull building. Construction problems there have led to delays -- the source of Struever Bros.' financial problems, he said....

City to re-assess Walltown, Trinity Ave. pools -- adding funding for South Durham rec center to boot

Ray Gronberg of the Herald-Sun had some of his usual good work in the daily fishwrap on Monday, covering Mayor Bell's wise interest in reopening the most painful scab on the post-Thomas Stith City Council when it comes back together in August.

To wit: an evaluation of how the proposed Walltown Park pool and the City's acquisition of the old Trinity Ave. YMCA from Duke might actually be able to "complement each other."

[A]dministrators of late have also talked up the idea of including splash pools and other kid-friendly amenities in the project. That and the potential addition of Duke's pool to the mix has Bell wondering if the plan for Walltown should change.

"My first thought was since we'd have an indoor pool at Trinity, maybe we could do with something different at Walltown that's maybe not as costly," Bell said, adding that one possibility is turning the Walltown project into an outdoor pool.

An outdoor pool could actually make some sense for a variety of reasons. The closure of the one at Duke Park still smarts in a number of local neighborhoods after so many years, and there remains only three for the whole city (at Long Meadow, Hillside and Forest Hills.) Yet these remain popular outdoor options especially for kids and families.

And in the case of Walltown, that's what the whole point of the approved rec center and proposed pool are intended to be: creating positive options for youth and teens outside of the dangerous, easy draws of mischief.

Shooting the Bull: Podcast for July 6, 2008

In this week's edition of "Shooting the Bull," Ellen Dagenhart from Preservation Durham stops by to talk about her organization's activities in the community, how historic districts and tax credits work, and to share her thoughts on the mission of historic preservation in the Bull City. Plus, we look at the unexamined story-behind-the-story of the power of PACs and parties in the Bull City through the lens of this week's media obsession. Thanks as always to the folks at WXDU for the opportunity to host this weekly show.

If you missed the Sunday night broadcast, you can download or listen to the show from the Internet Archive, or listen to it via this embedded player. You can also now subscribe to the podcast in iTunes, via WXDU's hosted podcast.

The Durham Flyer bows out of monthly publication, for now

July's issue of the free monthly newspaper The Durham Flyer hit distribution boxes this past week with a cover story on the performing arts in Durham -- and the announcement that Vol. 2, Issue 7 would be the final output from this startup publishing effort.

The magazine's publishers, Richard Giersch and Peter Pieraccini, note a range of factors from busy personal lives to an up-tick in business at their joint full-time job, Zen-Bio, Inc. Given the economy and the state of the newspaper business nationwide, though, editor-in-chief Brandee Hayhurst gave a somber business assessment on the travails of running a print-and-paper publication:

Online advertisers have taken a big chunk out of classifieds and traditional print advertising. With a declining real estate market and rising gas prices, businesses often decide to slash advertising budgets first.... In this type of environment, the Durham Flyer's management found it hard to get a foothold....

Circulation was growing and readers swiped most every copy from the racks. But with the large number of publications competing in this area, the advertising dollars were very hard to get.

Still, the three principals and the remaining staff hold out hope for the resumption of the newspaper at some point down the road, if conditions warrant, and that they'll announce any such news on the periodical's web site.

(Speaking of the Flyer, BCR also got an email this weekend singling out the efforts of Donovan Brantley, a young man working on sales and distribution for the Flyer as a second job pushing him to near 80-hours a week, for the love of Durham as much as a paycheck. If that's not the Durham spirit...)

Historic preservation the focus on tonight's "Shooting the Bull"

A quick post from Chez BCR, where yours truly has been recuperating from a bit of the flu that struck on Thursday night -- just the way to "enjoy" a long holiday weekend, no? (I knew I shouldn't have ticked off the satanists, darn it all.)

The extra time in bed did give me a chance to read Lewis Shiner's "Black and White" cover to cover; the book (which we talked about here last week) is a great summer read that also serves as one of the best thematic introductions to urban renewal and strife in 1960s Durham that I can imagine. (And which has its share of page-turner thriller moments, too.)

It looks like Shiner will be joining Barry and me two weeks from tonight on "Shooting the Bull" for an interview about the new novel and his reflections on the urban lead character in the book.

For tonight, the show will take a different lens to issues historic, as Preservation Durham board president Ellen Dagenhart comes on the radio to discuss PD's mission and the battle to save and preserve historic structures in the Bull City.

That's tonight at 7:30pm on WXDU (88.7 FM Durham) or early Monday via podcast here at BCR.

Regular BCR coverage will resume here tomorrow on the site.