DUKE LAYS THE TRACKS FOR GRAND CENTRAL

  

Plans to build apartments next summer take shape

   
  by Matt Sullivan
After one too many excuses for remaining the same grungy wasteland between a two-pole University, Central Campus is finally beginning to take shape as more than an eyesore.

Construction of a 500-bed undergraduate residential complex, the first step in a complete overhaul of Central, is on pace to begin next summer and be completed in time for current sophomores to move into cutting-edge, cosmopolitan apartments in fall 2006.

A second strip of buildings will follow to maintain the current bed capacity. By 2007 or 2008, the University will have a core around which to transform Central into a walkable student village.

The decades-long plan will cost several hundred million dollars to execute, and President Richard Brodhead said the University aims to use the 275-acre plot to make "a real connection, a real link, of activity and community" in an expansive neighborhood.

"Central Campus is neither central nor a campus," Brodhead said of the area's current state. "It certainly has its uses and no doubt its pleasures, but a person traveling around here doesn't get any sense of it as anything other than a certain mysterious space between East Campus and West Campus."

When the project is complete, administrators hope it will complement the developing social space on West Campus and will tie the disparate ends of campus together, creating a seamless unit of East, West and the Duke University Health System.

For years administrators have discussed such extensive cohesion as a project for the distant future, in part because of its daunting price tag. But extremely low interest rates make borrowing money an attractive--and immediate--option. For the first time in recent years, Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said, Duke will finance a project with loans in addition to capital in-hand.

"We're trying to figure out how to build Central with other people's money," he said. "This is not the way Duke has done things. This is the way lots of other people do things."

Because interests rates could go up at any time, the University wants to break ground as quickly as possible. If it becomes more expensive to take out loans, the University may have to cut back on further development in order to keep the cost of room and board stable, said Scott Selig, associate vice president for capital assets.

In the meantime, however, administrators are surging forward. Key players from the Allen Building, student affairs, housing and outside design consultants held a nine-hour meeting July 15, at which they mulled over the first architectural images for the opening phase of a decades-long vision.

Six initial streetscape designs depicted rows of six to ten townhouse-style buildings with room for retail space specific to residential life, from Uncle Harry's general store to a laundromat to a bookstore and the like, on the ground level. Larry Moneta, vice president for student affairs, said the sophisticated, multi-bedroom apartments are being designed not only to improve the residential experience but to bring back onto campus upperclass students, who have strayed from the confines of Duke.

"It's really a build-it-and-they-will-come mentality," said Eddie Hull, director of residence life and housing services, "and if you get the right mix, it will act as natural magic."

The University wants to use the opening stages of design to carve out a distinct identity for undergraduate life. Brodhead said some of the problems in undergraduate life can be addressed at least in part through housing "I think we want undergraduate university housing recognizable as undergraduate housing and not buildings for professional students," said David Schwarz, the lead architect. "We're all on the same page on that."

The first apartment complex will go up where Central basketball and tennis courts now stand, and as soon as it is finished, the University will demolish the current housing along Anderson and Yearby Streets to make way for the second undergraduate complex, which will include some space for graduate students. Together, they will form the foundation of a "town square" which will serve as the center of gravity for the reconfigured campus.

The plan for the subsequent phase of development will incorporate single-family housing for faculty and a neighborhood for graduate students. Later stages may include the construction of office space to bring home several administrative services that are currently housed in leased facilities off campus. Eventually the Health System, which currently borders the northwest corner of Central, could expand and integrate itself with the multi-dimensional campus. But these developments, which would enmesh fundamental branches of Duke, may still be 10 to 20 years down the road.

"The main thing I will always want to keep in mind about Central Campus," Brodhead said, "is the challenge of Central Campus is to make it something that solves many unmet needs of this University and simultaneously create a sense of continuity across the whole campus."

Kelly Rohrs contributed to this story.

Town and gown discuss, disagree about retail, dollars and Central

 
by Kelly Rohrs
The construction of Central Campus has not yet started, but already several of Duke's neighbors feel like the University is proceeding with steamrollers.

Local businesses and neighbors are frustrated with their lack of information and input about the University's plans for developing Central. They are concerned that in its zeal to make Central Campus an appealing student destination, the University will overdevelop the retail offerings and overstep the bounds of its educational mission. Neighbors, many of whom work with Duke through the Neighborhood Partnership Initiative, fear they will be powerless to stop Duke's eventual plans.

"It's like the joke: Where does the elephant sit? Any place it wants to." said Chris Greene, president of Norwood Avenue Neighbors. "One is always a little bit edgy with such a big neighbor and the biggest payroll in town."

Greene, whose husband works at Duke, said that despite her concerns she and her neighborhood support many of Duke's goals.

Plans for Central are still in the preliminary stages, and University officials are still not sure how much retail they want to put in the middle of campus when they replace the eyesore apartments. To draw students to Central, the development will certainly include some retail outlets, such as restaurants and a bookstore. "Clearly the issue here is trying to make sure that what we put in there is directed at the students who live in those dorms," Executive Vice President Tallman Trask said.

But Duke's neighbors remain wary. "No matter what Duke says, it will undermine surrounding businesses," said John Schelp, president of Old West Durham Neighborhood Association, noting that he has been the community point person on this issue. "The university mission is to educate, not to sell."

On Ninth Street, a minor thoroughfare flanked by apartments, a few dozen restaurants and several niche stores, business owners were less threatened by the financial implications of Central's development than by the trend of Duke's isolation.

"I don't think it'll affect us that much. Not that much of our business is Duke students," said Tom Campbell, co-owner of The Regulator bookstore on Ninth Street. "What bothers me about it is there's an overall trend at Duke to keep the students on campus all the time."

The InterNeighborhood Council, which includes representatives from many of the areas in the Neighborhood Partnership, has supported tentative Duke desires to build several restaurants, a hotel, a performing arts center and a bookstore.

But some residents fear that if Duke is not legally restricted, it will eventually sponsor businesses that will suck customers away from local vendors. A large chain restaurant or a corporate bookstore, for example, could draw townspeople to campus.

"We have to be concerned with our neighbors on Ninth Street because we all sink or swim together," said Walter Cleary, president of the high-performance sports store 9th Street Active Feet. "If they create a retail district, that doesn't generate a lot of goodwill."

To that extent, much of the friction between the town and Duke has focused on University/College zoning restrictions.

Two years ago, Durham worked with local institutions of higher education to create a University/College zoning designation that allows flexibility for the myriad uses educational institutions require. The zoning allowed for "limited retail."

According to a March 2003 e-mail sent by City Planning Director Frank Duke to neighborhood representatives, Duke lobbied for less stringent retail guidelines that would allow retail facilities "to the extent that they are designed to serve the campus population of the university."

University administrators said at the time that their revisions were to allow flexibility in the long term, but Duke's changes were not adopted.

When Duke had most of its campus re-zoned last year, it kept Central Campus as a residential zone until the plans for its redevelopment were finalized. Trask said last week that he does not plan to turn Central into a commercial mecca and that the University would like to eventually re-zone all of Central Campus under the new University/College category.

Whether that will be possible will depend on how much retail space the University pursues. The City Council would have to approve any zoning changes for Central, and neighbors said they would protest any zoning that would allow Duke to create a substantial shopping area.

The University might explore restricting the area to Duke affiliates, Trask said. "I would like this to be a very interesting place, and I would be wholly satisfied if there was some way to not allow non-Duke people to come in, but I don't think that's practical," he said.

University facilities are also tax exempt and neighbors say this would give retailers on campus an "unfair business advantage" while robbing the cash-strapped city of sorely needed funds.

Trask said the University would be willing to charge inflated rent and voluntarily donate money equivalent to retail taxes to the city.

Despite what many area leaders describe as positive experiences through the NPI, residents are still wary about Duke's promises, which they say are often poorly communicated.

"If you're trying to be friendly," Greene said, "that is not the way to do that."