A high-rise is coming to a popular Durham gathering place, and not everyone is happy
A big tower could bring big changes to one of the Triangle’s popular night spots, and not everybody’s happy about it.
Plans call for two buildings, including an 18-story high-rise, just past Durham Central Park on a square block formed by West Geer Street, Foster Street and Rigsbee Avenue. The area in and around the block includes Motorco Music Hall, Cocoa Cinnamon, King’s Sandwich Shop, Boxcar Bar & Arcade, and The Bar, one of the city’s few LGTBQ clubs.
Washington, D.C.-based developer Four Points and Alexandros Washburn, an urban designer who has worked in Durham and New York City, want to bring residential and commercial growth to the area, a 10-minute walk from downtown.
Their mixed-use GeerHouse will go vertical with the 18-story tower housing up to 205 apartments and a wide nine-story building with up to 140 units, from studios to two bedrooms. It will also include space for retail and entertainment.
Because it will bring, by far, the tallest building to the mostly one- and two-story Old North Durham neighborhood, some local patrons worry the 500,000-square-foot project will change not only the area’s look but also its identity.
Renderings show a reimagined Motorco connected to the two new buildings with a sleek and modern design. When the plans surfaced on social media, some worried the popular garage bar and music club would disappear, but the venue won’t be going anywhere or even be closed during construction, the developers told The News & Observer in an interview.
Four Points says keeping Durham’s social and cultural fabric is key, and the development won’t change what people like to do there: see artists perform, eat and drink outside and walk from one business to another.
“Durham is growing and it’s growing pretty strongly,” said Washburn, the designer. “This project is the idea of helping Durham grow, but preserving a lot of its character, and the processes that helped us get here is important.”
John Sunter, who oversees development at Four Points, said the first phase of the project will be worth $75 million dollars and bring around $1 million in annual tax revenue for the city and county.
The project is next to the Geer Street Garden restaurant, which will remain and isn’t part of the project.
Andy Magowan, who owns the restaurant, doubts it will be good for his business.
“It will be noisy, it will be dirty. There will be dust, debris, trucks going in and out all day long, just massive disruption to the neighborhood,” Magowan said about the development’s construction phase.
“And then at the end of that, what I will be left with is a patio that appears to have been dropped down a well,” he said. “I will have sheer walls, going straight up, removing a little bit of sky that you can see from my patio.”
Four Points bought part of the property for over $3.4 million last December, according to county records, with construction likely to start early next year or later, with a two-year process from there, the developer said.
GeerHouse is currently in a submissions process with the City-County Planning Department.
City departments will review the blueprints and submit comments on how the building may or may not follow the Unified Development Ordinance, Durham’s zoning laws, said Bo Dobrzenski, a manager of the planning agency.
Usually, buildings of a large scale pass through multiple periods of submissions and comments until meeting approval, and each review time frame is 30 days, Dobrzenski said.
“For context, a site plan of this scale has on average three to four reviews. Ultimately, there are as many reviews as necessary to demonstrate all ordinance and code requirements are met before any approval from the City will be issued,” he said, in an email to The N&O.
The project doesn’t require City Council approval or a public hearing, he said.
Concerns about the city’s character
Local residents and patrons of the area have reacted quickly on social media platforms like Reddit and Twitter.
Some expressed support, saying the GeerHouse plan could help meet demand for multifamily housing and lower housing prices over the long term since housing supply will increase. They added that it is an appropriate area to build densely, since no homes exist on the project site that could be potentially displaced.
Others worry that over time the project could gentrify that part of Durham by potentially raising rents and property costs.
Capital Broadcasting Company recently announced they would build a massive office, entertainment and residential project with a high-rise next to the American Tobacco Campus on a site they paid nearly $30 million for.
Quinn Holmquist, a resident of North Street Neighborhood, said their community didn’t get a say over the matter of building GeerHouse.
North Street Neighborhood, a block from Motorco, is an “intentional community of people with and without disabilities” that has been in the area for eight years, its website states. Its 16 houses are home to 100 residents.
“It feels sort of out of our control. And there’s just so much money involved that, like, it’s just going to kind of run us over,” said Holmquist. “So we feel a little bit powerless.”
Holland Gallagher, a Durham filmmaker, said the area is a mecca for the city’s independent visual and music artists.
“That [development] being so centralized on that one strip I think exemplifies the dichotomy between this ‘new Durham’ and the artistic, cultural Durham that Durham likes to pride itself on,” said Gallagher, 26, in an interview.
The city’s “arts-forward” culture has set it apart from its more urban neighbor of Raleigh and new development makes him feel like that culture is shifting, a sentiment also felt when the One City Center was built in downtown Durham, he said.
One City Center, the city’s tallest building, is a 27-story luxury apartment tower with one-bedroom units starting at $1,850 and two-bedroom units close to $4,000 a month.
Gallagher wrote and directed “Hype,” an online drama series set in Durham, which depicts the lives of its residents in its local art and rap scenes with gentrification as a main topic. The climax of the series, he said, was even shot in and around Motorco Music Hall.
He’s relieved that Motorco will remain but said the GeerHouse will likely attract people who can afford more expensive living, not the usual folk of the area, like young and independent artists, he said.
“The downstream effect of this is sort of a cultural displacement of some of the people that like to frequent the places on the block,” Gallagher said.
Magowan, the restaurant owner, said the development will “irrevocably change the character of the neighborhood for the worse.”
“It will drive prices for renters and homeowners up even further in the neighborhood,” he said.
Developer talks details
Washburn said residents will find a new and improved place for artists in his project. Rather than diminish the area’s entertainment and artistic energy, GeerHouse will create new spaces for people to walk through and enjoy, while adding things like a terrace to Motorco.
Washburn was involved in the design of the American Tobacco Campus in downtown Durham in the early 2000s. He also was part of the original partnership in 2007 that bought the Motorco property, then an abandoned car dealership, and turned it into a music venue in 2010.
Later he was chief urban designer of New York City while Mike Bloomberg was mayor and now runs DRAW Brooklyn, a design firm.
Washburn has been involved in Durham for almost 20 years and has “almost created some of Durham’s culture there by getting Motorco set up,” said John Sunter, who oversees development at Four Points.
The project’s partnership also involves the Tilley family, who have operated the Acme Plumbing Co. in the city since the 1950s. Their office is on the project site, and they are participating in its planning.
“I think people can be assured that [Durham’s] spirit is in good hands,” Sunter said. “Motorco’s success is our success.”
Washburn said the project site allows for creative retail spaces where the developers hope to appeal to pedestrians.
Technical drawings show a small skywalk connecting the apartment buildings with retail space inside a corridor between them.
There’s an opening across the site — a sewer line runs from Foster Street to Rigsbee Avenue — that the developers hope to make into a landscaped and walkable community corridor as part of a central plaza. It will also be accessible to people with disabilities.
Washburn said he also hopes to build a graffiti and art wall on a fence that will divide the property from another business.
The renovations to Motorco will enhance its outdoor gathering area by connecting it to the corridor between the future buildings. This will provide access from the site to Boxcar Bar & Arcade and other business on the block when finished.
“We think the mood that we will make with this community corridor and its retail fits the whole community better together,” said Sunter.
Neighborhood pushback
Residents from Old North Durham neighborhood sent a letter to the city July 15 objecting to the project and its allowed height, said resident Garver Moore in an email to The N&O.
Sunter of Four Points said they’d been made aware of the neighborhood’s letter and have invited them to meet to answer questions and walk residents through their plans and hear their concerns.
Height allowances are exemptions in Durham’s Unified Development Ordinance that allow developers to construct buildings higher than what zoning law permits if a proposal meets certain criteria.
The GeerHouse proposal claims three height allowances. This grants the developers permission to build about 75 feet, or roughly seven more stories on top of what’s normally allowed in the area, said Dobrzenski in a email to The N&O.
Those allowances are: 15 feet for using a green roof, 15 for historical preservation, and 30 feet for additional articulation and materials, which are building elements that “create a complementary rhythm or pattern” using windows, façades, and other features with the use of “masonry materials,” like terracotta, brick, or stone.
The letter’s writers say developers are “trying to have it ‘both ways,’” by “using the preservation of part of the Motorco structure to claim height on the Tower,” and using the articulated surfaces allowance “on one structure to justify height on the other.”
They said they want to see affordable housing units included in the project and also oppose the proposal’s historical preservation claim because the developers plan to demolish a part of the existing Motorco building.
GeerHouse’s site plan shows an existing building within the Motorco structure highlighted for removal.
“As submitted, the plan does not adequately preserve, nor does it create, historical interest. We find the use of a preservation allowance to erase history and implement a commercial monoculture particularly offensive,” stated the letter.
City and county staff are continuing to review the building plans, Dobrzenski said.
“This project has completed its first review and comments of correction have been issued to the developer. The developer has 6 months to submit a revised site plan to the City for review,” he said, in an email to The N&O.
This story was originally published July 31, 2020 at 9:00 AM with the headline "A high-rise is coming to a popular Durham gathering place, and not everyone is happy."
