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August 2008

Walltown, Trinity Ave. both still on track as indoor pool facilities

The great saga of the proposed indoor pool facilities for Walltown and Trinity Ave. got more play at last Thursday's City Council work session, as well-told by Ray Gronberg in a Saturday article in the Herald-Sun.

Last month, Mayor Bill Bell sounded like he was leaning towards a compromise outdoor pool for Walltown, with the Trinity Ave. facility -- an aging ex-YMCA that the City is set to buy back from Duke University -- seeing its indoor pool used for warm-water swim lessons especially for seniors and residents with disabilities.

While the two projects are still intended to complement each other, as Bell called for in July's discussion, look for Walltown's to be an indoor pool facility as well, albeit one with water slides and other recreational amenities.

According to Gronberg's retelling of the meeting events, it appears that at least part of the 2003 parks master plan -- which called for "four pool-equipped community centers on the southwestern, northwestern, northeastern and southeastern corners of the city" -- is now paper on the shelf, with one Parks & Rec administrator noting there were currently no plans or projections for additional public pools in Durham.

(Which is a bit odd, since the 2009-2014 Capital Improvements Program just passed a couple of months ago as part of the FY09 city budget specifically states relative to the southern Durham rec center that "This project will design and construct a full-service recreation center (pool and gym) to serve the rapidly growing neighborhoods of southern Durham.  The first phase will be acquisition of property to site the center." Ray, Parks & Rec folks -- any ideas?)


Shooting the Bull: Podcast for August 24, 2008

In this week's edition of "Shooting the Bull," Barry Ragin and I chat with new Durham city manager Tom Bonfield about about his first impressions of the Bull City; his thoughts on managing and leading a city government; and some of the challenges ahead since leaving the top job in Pensacola.

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: More signs of Ben Benson's to American Tobacco

With the financial travails of the daily newspapers, folks sometimes wonder where digging, investigative, beyond-the-press-release reporting will come from down the line. In the Triangle, at least, one outlet for that is the Independent Weekly.

And bully for the Indy's David Fellerath for diving into building permits and pulling out still more confirmation that Manhattan steakhouse Ben Benson's is looking to open its first restaurant outside of New York in the Bull City.

The long-rumored arrival of a high-end steakhouse in Durham's American Tobacco Campus appears to be a step closer to materializing. On July 30, the Durham City-County planning office issued a building permit to contractor Bovis Lend Lease to commence a $2 million renovation of the campus' three-story "Powerhouse," located at the center of the complex, just north of the water tower.

The job description on the permit is for "Ben Bensons Steakhouse—Upfit at the Powerhouse building." The cost of the job is given at $1,968,507. Construction activity has been under way at the site for months, and currently the building appears to be gutted. There is no visible signage at the site.

Continue reading "Indy: More signs of Ben Benson's to American Tobacco" »


Tom Bonfield on "Shooting the Bull" this Sunday

Bonfield_thomas Durham's new city manager, Tom Bonfield, will be Barry and my special guest on "Shooting the Bull" this Sunday night. The show airs live at 7:30pm on Sunday nights on Duke University's WXDU 88.7 FM, and will be available the following day as a podcast here at Bull City Rising and at Barry's place, as well as on iTunes.

Barry and I are looking forward to talking with Tom about his acclimation to his new home in Durham and his thoughts on any challenges ahead.


Southern Durham rec center a Parkwood possibility?

H-S metro reporter Matthew Milliken explores the issue of Parkwood's fading shopping center in today's paper, a 45-year-old, outmoded and small (24,000 sq. ft.) strip mall that sits at the core of the South Durham subdivision that pioneered the idea of residential development near RTP.

As Milliken reports, residents feel the center has grown dilapidated under the tenancy of a church in recent years; the church couldn't raise the funds to buy the center outright, and the shopping plaza has been bought back out of foreclosure by its former owner (and one-time Durham mayor) Jim Hawkins.

Set to lose another tenant when the Parkwood branch of the Durham County Library relocates to the new South Regional Library near RTP in a couple of years, the site might just become a home for a new public-sector tenant: a much-promised South Durham rec center.

Continue reading "Southern Durham rec center a Parkwood possibility?" »


Revolution rolls towards opening downtown

Claire Cusick reports in her terrific Now Serving column in the Indy this week that Jim Anile's restaurant Revolution, currently under construction on the ground floor of the Baldwin Lofts on W. Main St. downtown, is still moving forward for an early fall opening, with September 1 having been bandied about on the restaurant's blog as a possible start date.

According to the Revolution site, construction is well underway and dining room furniture has started to arrive, even as the final kitchen equipment and building systems are going in. On the down side, Anile noted yesterday on his blog that a new sewage line has to be run to the building, requiring the City's water department to come out and dig 13 feet down below Main St. this coming weekend. (That's a traffic hotspot to avoid this weekend.)

We'll have more on the restaurant's opening when a formal date is announced.


More thoughts (and some of the City's perspective) on the West Point Park question

This week's edition of The Durham News ran an opinion piece I wrote expanding on the West Point Park on the Eno discussions here from a few weeks back.

To recap: West Point Park on the Eno is under pressure from threatened development, and two paths seem clear: the City could spend a couple million dollars buying a developable parcel and expanding the park, or -- less definitively, and not confirmed by Raleigh officials -- the state could buy the parcel in exchange for the transfer of West Point Park to state control.

I've advocated the latter path, with some caveats; notably, the City would need to ensure that the state government would continue to permit current activities like the Festival for the Eno and educational programs.

Still, it's a very active public debate, and there are many sides to it. Beth Timson from Parks & Rec was nice enough to write in and share a document presented this month to the city's Recreation Advisory Commission with P&R's perspective on the parcel and the possible acquisition. (Download wp_and_bmr__aug_08.pdf )

The document notes that recent appraisals for the parcel in question range from $1.65 to $3.1 million depending on the allowable development density; the developer is asking $4-5 million for the site. The city analysis assumes a post-rezoning value of $2 million for the parcel, and puts forward a strawman of using $1 million earmarked for the Northern Athletic Park planning/design this year, and another $1 million to be found in next year's budget, to buy it.

Continue reading "More thoughts (and some of the City's perspective) on the West Point Park question" »


Duke to propose new landscaping, bike/ped friendly East Campus

Duke's East Campus is, unlike the forested Gothic wonderland of its West predecessor or the slumlord-chic feel of Central, practically a park with a campus in the middle of it. Not that should be surprising: much of it once was parkland and a racetrack, offered up by Washington Duke and Julian Carr in the 1890s for the relocation of Trinity College from Randolph County.

Eastcampus1928 And in fact, it's one of the most common uses for Duke affiliates and local residents alike; from the walking trails around East to the convenient passthrough amidst it connecting neighborhoods like Trinity Park to Ninth Street and shopping, East Campus' layout and design make it a natural destination for pedestrians and bikes.

This spring, the university took a step forward in improving that pedestrian nature, a change that benefits Duke students and the community alike, by presenting a design plan to university trustees designed to make the campus more pedestrian and bicycle-friendly.

Continue reading "Duke to propose new landscaping, bike/ped friendly East Campus" »


BCR readers, Shooting the Bull listeners: Win free tickets to "El Greco to Velazquez" show at the Nasher

Velazquez As Barry and I promised on "Shooting the Bull" this week: Here's your opportunity to win two free passes to the upcoming exhibit "From El Greco to Velazquez" opening Thursday at the Nasher Museum of Art. (If you missed the show this week, check out the podcast for our conversation with the always-interesting Sarah Schroth, curator of the groundbreaking show.)

Send an email to [email protected] explaining, in 50 words or less, why you need these free passes. Barry Ragin and I, the hosts of Shooting the Bull, will choose the winning entry on the basis of creativity, originality, and overall Durhamness.

Duke University employees and students are not eligible (you all get discounted admission anyway) nor are Kevin and Barry's immediate family members. Emails must be time stamped no later than noon on Friday, August 22, 2008. We will contact the winner at the email address you've entered from and provide details on how to claim you prize.  We reserve the right to publish any entries as we see fit, but we guarantee that your email addresses will not be used in any form whatsoever.

Good luck!


County to DDRT: Deck to get some aesthetic improvements, but no street-level retail

Today's Herald-Sun has an update on the design review for the Durham County Justice Center -- AKA "new courthouse" -- planned for construction on the block bordered by Mangum, Dillard, Roxboro, and the "Durham County Detention Center" -- AKA "jail."

Dcjc_deck The initial public review of the plans for the center touched off a small debate over the design of the courthouse's parking deck, which includes a number of attractive screening features, but not any street-level retail.

Matthew Milliken of the H-S points out in today's paper that the County is open to making some design changes on the parking deck, including the possibility of additional beautification on the Roxboro St. side of the deck.

Still, however, the County has drawn the line on adding street-level retail or other pedestrian-engaging activities on the deck, with County engineer Glen Whisler again citing legal, cost and logistical obstacles to doing so.

As Milliken points out in the H-S, however, the County's own design appears to run afoul of the City's design district best practices for downtown:

But in response to a question from the review team, the engineer reiterated the county's unwillingness to incorporate retail shops into the street level of the Justice Center parking deck, which will be located at Dillard and Roxboro streets.

The county will evidently ask for at least two design guidelines to be waived for the parking deck: one calling for a minimum of 70 percent of the nonresidential ground-floor square footage of a street block to feature pedestrian-oriented uses and another calling for the ground level of parking structures to be wrapped by retail or similar activity-generating uses.

Bottom line: Barring something unforeseen on the City's end, look for the parking deck to remain status quo as initially proposed.