‘A bad feeling’: What the city is doing about downtown Raleigh concerns.
Crime. Parking. Fewer customers and people downtown.
The owners of one popular Raleigh restaurant outlined several reasons Monday why they plan to leave downtown after 88 years, though they have not set a date.
“There’s a bad feeling about being downtown,” said Debbie Holt, who owns Clyde Cooper’s Barbecue with her daughter Ashley, in an interview with The News & Observer. “People used to mosey about and stroll down the street. You don’t see that going on today.”
Holt’s comments echoed business owners who have raised similar concerns this year, and city officials are studying how to improve downtown foot traffic since the pandemic.
What other business owners have said
Downtown business owners have described their employees being hit, spit on and groped.
“My staff has been threatened with bricks, and they have had their lives threatened on a regular basis,” Kim Hammer, owner of Bittersweet and Johnson Street Yacht Club, told city leaders in September. “This is a daily thing. It’s incredible stressful. We can’t take it any more.”
Matt Coleman, owner of The Davie, described seeing a “known criminal” brandishing a knife in the air and screaming at pedestrians near his patio.
“It’s hard to believe now that business owners are having to clean up human feces outside of our shops, needles from our patios and deal with folks exposing themselves inside their bars mid-afternoons,” he said.
What has the city done?
Raleigh is pursuing a short-term contract with Capitol Special Police to patrol the GoRaleigh bus station in downtown. Those officers will carry guns, wear body cameras and were to start in early November, though a city spokesperson said they have not yet begun.
The extra security will be a ”force multiplier,” and private police and security officers are already being used by businesses and in other parts of the city, Raleigh Police Chief Estella Patterson said in a previous interview. (The N&O asked to speak with Patterson for this story but has not yet heard back.)
The Raleigh City Council’s Safe, Vibrant and Health Community Committee held two meetings, including one focused on hearing from downtown business owners, employees and residents. The committee will meet again to discuss a long-term downtown policing plan, among other things.
Many of the complaints concerned the bus station and Moore Square area, and police are ramping up enforcement with a “zero tolerance approach.”
The N&O also requested the latest crime data for downtown on Tuesday but has not yet received the information.
What about the Downtown Raleigh Alliance?
The Downtown Raleigh Alliance (DRA), which administers funds from the Downtown Raleigh Municipal Service District, is also hiring private security. Those officers are on the ground now.
Those private security officers will be unarmed and focus on the bus station and Moore Square area. They will be wearing body cameras and will be filing daily reports, with serious incidents prompting an alert to the DRA team.
A new camera system is also being installed downtown, funded by the Raleigh Police Foundation. The Fusus Real Time Center platform lets businesses and residents connect their security cameras into this center “to quickly identify criminal behavior as it is occurring and take proactive steps to disrupt it,” Patterson said in a Sept. 27 news release.
“In Downtown Raleigh, we are very excited for the arrival of the Fusus Real Time Center Platform and very thankful to the Raleigh Police Department Foundation for this purchase for our community,” Bill King, chief executive officer of the DRA, said in the news release. “.We visited several cities and saw this type of network used with great effect.”
The foundation was established in 2022 by local business and civic leaders “to support and strengthen the Raleigh Police Department and to promote public safety in Raleigh by organizing innovative events that bring police officers in closer touch with the community.”
New ambassadors
The DRA also revamped its ambassador program with a new vendor, starting Sept. 1. New vehicles have been purchased for faster deployment, hours were changed to focus on “hot spot” areas and new uniforms were purchased.
Revamping downtown Raleigh
Downtown Raleigh, like many cities’ downtowns, has struggled to regain foot traffic since the shift to more remote work during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The city of Raleigh and Downtown Raleigh Alliance are creating a retail strategy for Fayetteville Street, and working to revamp the downtown office market, support minority- and women-owned businesses and identify “catalytic projects” to grow the downtown economy.
A virtual meeting to share thoughts about the economic development strategy is planned for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 15, and there is a survey for people who can’t attend the pop-up events.
Registration and the survey link can be found at tinyurl.com/ycuybyzs
A draft plan is expected in spring 2024 with a final plan in June 2024.
Reporter Drew Jackson contributed to this article.
This story was originally published November 14, 2023 at 5:07 PM with the headline "‘A bad feeling’: What the city is doing about downtown Raleigh concerns.."