By Ray Gronberg
gronberg@heraldsun.com; 419-6648
DURHAM -- N.C. Department of Transportation engineers think they've come up with a way to avoid bulldozing North-East Central Durham's Los Primos grocery when they widen Alston Avenue, but the City Council isn't happy with the proposed solution.
In essence, engineers have suggested moving the right of way of what would become a four-lane road a couple dozen feet to the east, enough to avoid the building. A low retaining wall would divide it from the road, and the grocery would lose part of its parking lot.
But council members made it clear Thursday they aren't pleased by the necessary fallout to the east -- the taking of part of the property of the Urban Ministries of Durham, the charity that runs the community's homeless shelter.
The road would displace the nonprofit's existing food pantry, and council members said it would likely also interfere with Urban Ministries' plans to expand on the site.
Local officials are eager to save the grocery because it's the only one still operating in the heart of predominantly low-income North-East Central. That makes its preservation an "environmental justice" issue, in the argot of federal regulators who've told DOT to avoid taking the store.
Harming the homeless shelter isn't any better, Councilwoman Cora Cole-McFadden told DOT officials Thursday.
"In my definition of environmental justice, this is like an environmental injustice, when you're affecting a homeless population," she said.
But DOT's project manager for the widening, Beverly Robinson, indicated that the agency probably won't change the new plan, no matter how much the council or anyone else complains.
"This is just my opinion, but unless something comes up from the council or citizens that DOT hasn't already considered, then this is probably going to be DOT's recommendation," she said.
DOT and city officials have been going back and forth on the road's design for a couple years now, with the city losing over the placement of turn lanes at several key intersections.
Agency engineers bent on the grocery only because a presidential executive order, signed in 1994 by former President Bill Clinton and left intact by his successors, directs the federal government to avoid inflicting "disproportionately high and adverse" impacts on minority or low-income neighborhoods.
The Federal Highway Administration polices that for state road projects like the Alston Avenue widening that rely partly on federal subsidies.
Durham officials had hoped that DOT would consider paying to relocate Los Primos, with the most likely candidate site being in their mind a long-abandoned former grocery at the corner of Alston Avenue and Liberty Street.
But Robinson said DOT looked only for a "turnkey" site, meaning a building that was move-in ready. She added that it couldn't find one.
That told council members the agency didn't look very hard at the relocation options.
"There aren't any turnkey locations in North-East Central Durham at all," Councilman Mike Woodard said, alluding to the probability that any vacant commercial structure in the area would need major renovations.
Robinson also said DOT views the lane shift as the cheapest option. The added right of way would cost about $200,000 while options like relocation could cost almost $1.5 million, she said.
Engineers already figure the project will cost $25.9 million, according to the current state transportation improvement program.
