Bull City Rising

Trinity Park debates PERC chemical intrusion on one-time W. Club Blvd. dry-cleaning site

Wednesday night's Trinity Park Neighborhood Association meeting provided one of the first public forums for discussing the contamination of a one-time dry cleaner located in the old BB&T bank building at W. Club and Watts.

The heavily-attended meeting largely provided a platform for North Carolina's Division of Environmental and Natural Resources (DENR) to try to assuage public fears evinced on listserv debates and a recent Herald-Sun article about the contamination, which has been under review on the site since 2006.

During the meeting, DENR staff and their contractor noted that harmful traces of a dry cleaning chemical had been found around the rear of the building and was migrating less than ten feet a year northward towards Northgate Mall's parking lot, but sought to reassure the public that there were no signs that contamination had spread towards neighboring homes on Dollar and Watts.

While the meeting was largely framed around the science of the contamination of perc (a common dry cleaning chemical), DENR representatives did come under fire from some in attendance over the time elapsed between the start of the state's investigation and the building's closure to a storefront church that had rented it -- and from a representative of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League, which criticized the underpinnings of the state's approach on perc cleanup.

BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for July 10, 2009

It's a quiet day in the fishwraps this morning:

• We were talking just a few days ago here about how the Triangle Expressway project had the $390m in federal loans it needed to help bridge a funding gap, and was just waiting to close on capital-market loans before moving forward with the electronic toll road extending NC 147 (the Durham Freeway) through RTP and along NC 540 to Holly Springs. Well, the H-S notes today that the $615m in private-sector bonds needed to start land acquisition is set to be issued in the next 10 days. The northern portion of the road is still on track for a 2011 opening. (H-S)
• Cora Cole-McFadden has put her hat in the ring for re-election in Ward 1. To date, neither Cole-McFadden nor Mayor Bell or Ward 3's Mike Woodard are facing any challengers. (H-S)
• Almost $80,000 in computers and electronics were stolen from UPS' depot on South Miami Blvd. late last month; several terminations related to the thefts have taken place. (H-S)
• Though it didn't make the finalist list, reps from Apple covertly scouted Durham as a possible location for their East Coast data center -- a facility that, despite its grandiose name and massive tax breaks, brings fairly few jobs and really is looking for massive land, cheap power, and plenty of cooling away from railroad lines and other interference. Maiden, in Catawba Co., won the prize. (N&O)

N&O notes West Village-Chesterfield buyout possible; Chronicle pessimistic on more Duke downtown leases

Two stories with interesting interplay in the papers of late.

Jack Hagel, the terrific real estate reporter for the N&O, continues his focus on Durham in today's paper. (Hagel broke the news of James Scott Farrin's relocation to downtown Durham and, with Anne Blythe, has cleaned up on coverage of West Village issues.)

Hagel notes something that we here at BCR have heard rumors of: that third-party investors have approached lawsuit-bedgraggled West Village principals Christian Laettner and Brian Davis about buying out the debts stymying the completion of the massive Chesterfield building, bringing in new money and new blood to the project.

"But no decision is imminent, and Davis and Laettner don't seem interested," Hagel writes. We've heard the same thing, with an added proviso that finding a price level reasonable to both prospective buyer and seller can be challenging at times.

As Hagel notes, the strong demand for apartments and office space at West Village -- the apartments are essentially fully-leased, with office space 80% leased -- means that the project is likely to be a winner whoever finishes it.

Because You Asked: What's up with plans for a South Durham YMCA?

BCR reader Evan wrote in a couple of weeks ago to ask this question for our Because You Asked series:

What are the current plans (if any) for a YMCA in SouthWest Durham?  I had heard a while back that they may be planning a Y in SW Durham when they were closing the Lakewood Y but now that it is staying open are there still plans for another Y in SW??

Good question, Evan. And in fact, during the discussions on the Lakewood Y's fate back in 2007, the Durham YMCA Board of Advisors noted their intention to look for a near-term South Durham location for a Y in addition to maintaining the Lakewood facility.

In December 2007, the plans were to look for a small-sized space, likely in a leased storefront location, in anticipation of building a full-service (70,000 sq. ft. or so) Y in South Durham sometime in the future; or as the Y put it at the time, to "position the YMCA for significant expansion in that area."

We're midway through '09; is a South Durham Y on the way for winter? According to Bryan Huffman, executive director of Durham's YMCA branches, the economy among other factors has pushed that date back to an indefinite one.

"It's not directly moving forward with a quick timeline," Huffman told BCR in an interview on Wednesday.

BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for July 9, 2009

• 35% of the non-exempt employees offered buyouts by Duke have preliminarily accepted early retirement, a figure above the 10-20% university HR officials were hoping for -- a good showing that reduces the likelihood of involuntary layoffs as the university seeks to close a $125 million budget gap in the coming years. A similar plan is being weighed for professional/administrative exempt employees whose age and years of service combined exceed 75. (H-S)
• As expected, Pastor Sylvester Williams filed for City Council's Ward 2 seat, joining libertarian Matt Drew in challenging Howard Clement for re-election. His presence assures that a county-wide primary election will be held on October 6 to select only two finalists for the November 3 general election. (H-S)
• Meanwhile, and also as expected, Mayor Bill Bell has filed for re-election for the mayor's job. (N&O)
• The H-S' and N&O's coverage of the opening of downtown's new Amtrak station at West Village reminds us that a third Raleigh-Charlotte train is expected to start running by the end of the year, which will bring the number of daily Bull City stops up from four to six.
• A new state law requiring comprehensive sex ed curricula in local schools won't impact Durham, one of the districts already providing such more-than-abstinence education as a local option for years. Of NC's 100 counties, Durham ranks 26th-highest for teen pregnancy rates per 1000 youth; Durham Co. has the 17th-highest rate of white teenager pregnancies and 64th-highest rate of minority teen pregnancies in the state. (H-S #1, #2)

Greenfire hitches Woolworth site project to Chicago architect's rising star, wins Historic Comm. approval

A hat tip to the N&O's Jim Wise, who seems to be everywhere these days covering this story or that for the paper's western Triangle newsroom. (Perhaps Jim's discovered Mike Woodard's secret robo-clone machine, allowing a simulacrum of the City Councilman to appear at every civic event in town?)

Jim appears to have been the only man-on-the-scene reporting on yesterday's Historic Preservation Commission meeting, where Greenfire's revised project plan for the old Woolworth site at Corcoran, Main and Parrish Sts. downtown got a unanimous seal of approval from the commission.

One big piece of news: Carl Webb's statement during the hearing that the project is moving forward with possible tenants as the wind behind the developers' back:

Greenfire needs to finish the building in two years, Webb said.

"We have prospective tenants," he said. "That's part of the reason we're trying to move as aggressively as we can. ... We have opportunities sooner than later."

Wise's reporting also reveals the name of the architect who designed the project (a source of much curiosity around the well-received design) -- Robert Bistry.

Bistry, it turns out, is a Chicago-based architect described in one profile as a "talented young architect" formerly with DeStefano & Partners, a major firm in the Windy City. Bistry left the firm earlier this decade to form Built Form Architecture as a founding partner and one of six principals there.

BCR's Daily Fishwrap Report for July 8, 2009

• The H-S' Monica Chen delves further into an NCSU economist's report that unemployment in the state could reach 13% by next year; he projects, though, that the recovery from the crisis in NC could be faster than that in other parts of the US, with falling home prices and a massive slowdown in new construction leading to a predicted uptick in housing sales. Still, retail sales in NC were off by almost 20% statewide compared with '08. (H-S)
• Construction's done on the old Durham Athletic Park renovations, and the project awaits merely its certificate of occupancy, coming soon. A mid-August opening celebration has been penciled in but awaits the project's full completion. No question, though -- it'll be done before September's Bull Durham Blues Festival. (The Durham News)
• 61 teacher coach positions have been created with stimulus dollars, DPS reports, and have been mostly filled by teachers laid off by DPS last year. Still, the state's budget crisis -- and failure to pass a budget that leaves DPS knowing what its budget will be next year -- has the district frustrated in its inability to sign a number of its teachers to contracts for the next school year. (H-S)
• Stormwater billing under the new annualized system, and with the new higher third tier for properties with more than 4,000 sq. ft. of impervious surface, starts this month. Property owners, not renters, are supposed to be responsible for the bill, and the City is reminding tenants to let the Stormwater Services Billing Unit know if the stormwater fee shows up in a tenant's name. (H-S)
• Academic and former presidential adviser David Gergen, a 1959 Durham High grad, will speak at the class's fiftieth reunion this weekend. (H-S)
• A fourth fox has tested positive for rabies -- the fifth such animal to test positive this year. (H-S)

Amtrak station opens with on-time departure

The Bull City's new Amtrak station -- relocated across the tracks from an old modular unit to a spiffy new 10,000 sq. ft. space inside West Village's Walker Warehouse -- opened on time this morning.

And the two-dozen or so passengers heading out to Charlotte on the morning Piedmont train were greeted to a much-upgraded experience from the station days of old... not to mention a number of media and NCDOT types there to check out the first departure. Below: the train pulls away from Durham Station as passengers' family and local media members watch.

It was my first time heading into the station, and there's no denying that the new station is a far more comfortable place to wait for a train than the tired Amshack had been.

Ninth St. North adds UPS Store this fall

How many franchises of The UPS Store does the area adjacent to Duke's campus need?

More than one, apparently.

An advertisement in last week's Duke Chronicle announced that the franchisee who operates the relatively-new UPS Store at Pavilion at Lakeview off West Campus is adding another operation, this time on Ninth Street near East Campus.

Durham's new Amtrak station opens Wednesday

It's a couple of days still until Friday's ribbon-cutting ceremony at the new Amtrak station in West Village's Walker Warehouse, but the facility will get its soft-launch tomorrow in its beautiful and spacious 10,000 sq. ft. digs.

NCDOT has announced the station will open for business tomorrow, Wednesday July 7 at 6:30am. A 7:22am Piedmont train's departure to Charlotte, will be the first passenger train to make use of the new facility. The new station will open a half-hour earlier than the old station.

Passengers who arrive at the old "mobile home-style" station on W. Chapel Hill St. will see their new destination waiting across the tracks at West Village (601 W. Main).

The official ribbon-cutting for the station is set for 2pm Friday.

Update: NBC 17 points out that Durham's station is the fifth-busiest in North Carolina, and that the "waiting room" in the new station will be the state's largest.