NCCU expansion worries neighbors

Nelms pushes a plan to buy 136 homes

DURHAM -- During the next decade, N.C. Central University wants to tear down 19 buildings, put up more than two dozen and edge into nearby neighborhoods by buying 136 homes and other properties.

These intentions, made public recently with the release of a draft master plan, have set many in the community on edge. Though the university promises to pay fair market value, many longtime residents of the bungalows in and around NCCU and the Fayetteville Street corridor feel campus officials are sacrificing a rich local history in the name of growth and expansion.

The clash is emerging as the first big challenge for Chancellor Charlie Nelms, who arrived last summer from Indiana University and is not, as many locals have pointed out, a native of Durham or even a North Carolinian. He counters by promising to listen to their concerns but also insists NCCU must grow.

Residents worry that Nelms is tone-deaf to the history of the historic black neighborhoods around NCCU. Homes there are passed from generation to generation, and campus and neighborhoods, inextricably linked, have matured together.

"You need to include the people who have heart and soul invested in this community," Durham native Scarlett McNeill-Wingate, who grew up in a home on Fay- etteville Street near NCCU, said recently during a forum at which Nelms defended the plan. "It hurts to see our neighborhood totally destroyed. You have to be extra sensitive because you aren't from here."

Nelms oversees a university in growth mode with a few key projects driving the planning process. The nursing program is growing fast and has received planning money to evolve into a full-service professional school. To do that, NCCU must soon have a new nursing building. A growing football program and other expanding professional programs also are driving the expansion, Nelms and other officials say.

"I'm prepared to listen to anyone who has a suggestion or recommendation," Nelms said at a community forum last week. "But I also know we need a school of nursing. We need a school of business."

Though there is no definitive price tag for the entire plan, officials know the nursing school is expected to cost $25 million and new residence halls will total an estimated $30 million.

Some neighbors say the university is steamrolling ahead with this master plan -- which may go to NCCU's Board of Trustees for approval later this month -- without adequate community involvement. Though a planning committee originally included community members, Nelms acknowledged recently he feels committees can be overly cumbersome. The committee portion of the process is now over, he said.

"I have yet to see a plan where everyone agrees on everything," he said.

If the plan is approved, the university will start contacting property owners. The State Property Office is responsible for negotiating purchases.

'Crushing this history'

Carolyn Green Boone, the great-granddaughter of NCCU founder James Shepard, thinks Nelms and other NCCU administrators are ignoring the significance of many of the aged homes near campus. Many homes near Lawson and Fayetteville streets, in particular, deserve more of a hearing than the university is providing them, Boone argued.

One in particular is the Rivera house on Fayetteville Street, the former home of noted documentarian and photographer Alexander Rivera. NCCU owns it and plans to demolish it, saying it is not structurally sound. Boone disputes that and thinks it is historic and ought to be preserved. "They're crushing this history," she said. "They're demolishing it, and the history behind these homes is gone when the homes are gone."