Where immigrant laborers once hand-rolled Bull Durham tobacco, urban pioneers can dwell in bright and airy apartments for $2,350 a month. The remaking of Durham's American Tobacco district has entered a whole new dimension. "We're just trying to capture Durham's fair share of people who want to live downtown," said Ken Reiter, senior development director with Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, the Baltimore firm redeveloping two American Tobacco buildings -- including the 1874 "Old Bull" building -- into ritzy living quarters.

About half a dozen of the 17 apartments in the Noell Building, near the factory campus's north end, have found renters. A few steps away, the Old Bull Building is less than two months from a similar transformation into ground-floor offices and shops and 57 apartments on the floors above.

People moving in all but complete the American Tobacco district's metamorphosis from derelict cigarette factory to Durham's icon of civic pride.

Completing the picture

In 1995, the Durham Bulls Athletic Park opened on the abandoned factory's parking lot. In 1998, Capitol Broadcasting opened its Diamond View office building behind right field.

In 2004, the first section of a renovated American Tobacco factory brought jobs, food and an artificial river to the block where Durham's tobacco story began. Two more buildings have filled with offices since then.

The residents' arrival, said Alan DeLisle, the city's economic development director, is "critical to our next phase" of inner-city revival.

"We need more people living downtown," DeLisle said. "That's going to drive more restaurants, drive more retail. [This] is the first major installment in a long time."

Some of those restaurants and retailers could be operating in American's old coal shed, in view of some of Noell and Old Bull's windows and decks. The coal shed is slated for renovation later this year, topping off the old factory's renewal, Reiter said.

"We're just trying to capture Durham's fair share of people who want to live downtown," Reiter said. "Raleigh has been successful in doing what they can do, we ... I feel that Durham has a little more urban, a little more grit. Not everyone likes it, but if you like it a little more gritty, we think that's a large appeal."

A 24-7 downtown

"Downtown Durham is really booming," said Chamber spokeswoman Sheena Johnson. "People are starting to see the transformation. It's definitely going to be that 24-7 community we've all been looking for."

Elsewhere in the American Tobacco district just off the Durham Freeway, Capitol Broadcasting is putting up Diamond View II -- a 150,000-square foot, five-story office building overlooking left field at the Durham Bulls Athletic Park. It opens in May, said project manager Michael Goodmon.

Just north of Diamond View II, the city's 2,800-seat, $44 million Performing Arts Center is on schedule for a late fall opening.

"For all of downtown ... it's going to be a big year," said Matthew Coppedge of Downtown Durham Inc., the area's booster organization. " '08 is kind of the year when all these things we were hoping they'd start [are] getting done."

Action all around

Across the tracks, Blue Devil Partners is finishing its second phase of West Village at the former Liggett & Myers tobacco plant. Michael Lemanski's Greenfire Development presented a $284 million renewal plan to Durham's city council last week. Andy Rothschild's Scientific Properties, among other interests, have makeovers under way and on the drawing boards.

"You can get probably 10,000 to 15,000 people living and working and playing downtown," Reiter said. "It would be a lot of fun."

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