Durham hopes for downtown renewal

Durham, Raleigh city centers anxiously waiting for the promised crowds

Eleven months ago, Raleigh threw itself a party to celebrate the reopening of a spruced-up Fayetteville Street to traffic, seen then as a key moment in the rebirth of downtown.

Tomorrow, Durham will do much the same, with the Durham Rising fete marking the completion (almost) of an 18-block, $16.4 million street and sidewalk repair project. Brick-lined sidewalks, decorative stamped concrete at intersections and 215 new trees are the decorative touches to the completely resurfaced streets and sidewalks.

As with Raleigh's $10 million Fayetteville Street project, Durham officials and downtown boosters say fresh concrete will be a catalyst, turning a neglected city center into a vibrant urban heart with life pumping through boutiques, restaurants and condos. But if Fayetteville Street is an indication, new roads don't immediately lead to new life.

Durham's downtown has struggled with empty storefronts and crumbling streets and sidewalks for years. And Fayetteville Street was reopened with great hoopla to vehicle traffic after decades as a pedestrian mall, which had turned the four-block stretch into a dead zone that killed many businesses and made the area a hangout for vagrants.

Dead after five

On Tuesday evening, though, Mikhail Jannick sat across Fayetteville Street from his mostly empty coffee and ice cream shop at a mostly empty bar. He wasn't drowning his sorrows exactly. Business at Crema is steady, he said, and it is steadily -- if slowly -- picking up. Some nights are better than others.

But Jannick admits he thought he'd have more customers by now. He and his brother opened Crema in October, a few months after the refurbished street was reopened to traffic and celebrated as a sign of downtown renewal.

Business has improved, he said, "but it's not nearly what they said it was going to be."

Both Durham and Raleigh are battling the 5 p.m. effect, in which downtown is deserted once the lawyers, government employees and bankers head home. No amount of street repairs will fix that, Jannick said, unless more businesses come in and stay open later. His is one of the few on Fayetteville that bothers to stay open past five.

Angela Reed, 35, a Shaw University student who frequents some downtown restaurants, shook the locked doors of CVS Pharmacy. It was 6:21 p.m. Tuesday, making her 21 minutes late to catch the drug store open. Moments like this make her think twice about living downtown, something she said she's considered.

"There's still stuff going on," she said. "I need things."

Many vacant storefronts remain on Fayetteville Street.

Why stick around?

But Greg Hatem, founder of Empire Properties, which manages about 35 properties in downtown Raleigh (and three in downtown Durham), said many stores will be open with new tenants within the year, including an art gallery and a restaurant.

Hatem oozes optimism when discussing both the present and future of Fayetteville Street. But he said it will take time in both Raleigh and Durham for the full effect to be realized. The immediate effect of the street improvements is the public's view of downtown changes for the good, Hatem said. Developers capitalizing on that with new projects takes longer, he said.

"Development is something that's time-consuming," Hatem said.

"There's a lot of planning and permitting and construction. That overnight impact to start with is more psychological, and that's what spurs people to develop."

Many property owners are biding their time until the 2,640 new residential units planned or under construction for downtown open.