Economy & Downtown
Chapel Hill's downtown has long benefited from its proximity to a captive audience of University students without cars. While downtowns around the country have been failing, ours has survived fairly well. However, we have seen an increase in the number of chain stores locating downtown, and instability in the Downtown Economic Development Corporation. In the near future, we will see new Town-directed development on two major parking lots have a big impact.
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Carrboro's downtown has also done better than many towns of comparable size, thanks largely to the presence of Weaver Street Market and progressive shoppers from the rest of the county. The Board of Aldermen has been addressing the evolution of the downtown, and have established a number of community resources in the downtown area including free wireless Internet access, and a low-power radio station.
I took some photos today but they are truly horrible. Wlil post later. Some of my biggest impressions so far:
- The
empty Pfizer campus, and the Chamber director talking about nearby
businesses that are about to go under from losing the business from
2,000 employees & 1,000 contractors that used to work there. Are
you listening Carolina North folks?
- There
are lots of tall buildings (5 - 10 - 15
feet stories) and most of them look
really nice and seem to work well. Some of them don't though. I
talked with some folks tonight about how Chapel Hill lacks the
regulatory tools to analyze tall buildings. How do we know how tall is
"too tall", what are factors that make it work or make it fail? One
local suggested that I meet a woman from their downtown commission, but
I'm really more interested in the perspective of a City Council or
Planning Board type.
I hope none of you were surprised to hear about this development. (If so, it's because you apparently didn't read my recent rant about "the problem with downtown." Hint: It has something to do with negligent landlords.)
The bank filed a request late last month for a foreclosure hearing in
Orange County Superior Court, saying Spencer C. Young Investments
wasn't making payments on $2.63 million it had borrowed in 2005 to buy
the property.
[...]
In June, a collection agency sued Young, saying he had defaulted on
a $15,000 credit line from Citibank. Earlier, Wright Co. Electrical and
Maintenance Services sued Young in Orange County small claims court,
claiming almost $3,000 in unpaid services there and at a shopping
center he owns in Durham.
This summer, Raleigh-based Benjamin
Construction Inc. sued Young for more than $550,000, saying he did not
pay for construction of Baba Ghannouj, a Middle Eastern restaurant, and
various general improvements to the property.
As many of you know, I have had harsh words for the inter-city visits organized by the Community Leadership Council (an arm of the Chamber of Commerce). I still believe what I said on July 11th:
I'd be willing to go under certain
circumstances, but I would not pay my own money for a junket that
promotes someone else's agenda. (Plus I couldn't afford it, even I
wanted to pay.) If I did go, it would mostly be as a blogger so that I
could get better informed and tell others what actually goes on, what
is learned, etc.
It seems like one of the main benefits of these
trips is better relations between the participants, who are already the
connected power brokers in town from the university, government,
business, and nonprofit worlds. They could certainly save money and
include more people by having a conference or retreat here in NC and
bringing in experts from other places.
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