A few words from our Editor: Aaron Mandel

Stop, hey, what’s that sound?

If you’re in downtown Durham, the answer is probably a jackhammer. Development is everywhere.

I love to chat urbanization and politics with my desk neighbor at Mercury Studio, Durham Resurrection Community Church‘s Pastor, Ryan Quanstrom. One day a couple weeks back, we were running though our collective notes on just how much development was happening in and around the Durham downtown loop.

Ryan, the proactive sort that he is, ran the numbers and what he came up with was astonishing. In a 1.5 mile diameter circle around the plaza dominated by our city’s symbol, Major the Bull, there are scheduled for development in the next fifteen months 1466 condo/apartment units, a total of $257 million dollars in development.

The list below does not include the proposed development at Church and Main. It does not include the commercial developments around Major the Bull, $318 million was the purchase price for the Hill Building (the former Suntrust headquarters) that is the process of conversion to a museum hotel.

Nor does it include, the 23 story tower going in on the former Woolworth’s site known as the Green Wall.

It doesn’t include the massive development thrown up lightning fast across from the La Salle Street Post Office.

The Clarion Content’s view is that change inevitable, the type of change is influence-able.

The Clarion Content encourages your comments. Please extend the discussion and leave a reply at the end of this column.

Crescent on Ninth Street – 303 units, $47 mil

Crescent on Main – 208 units, $41 million

Rollings Hills Phase 1 – 259 units, $48 million

Swift Avenue Apartments – 202 units, $40 mil

West Village Phase 3 – 156 units, $35 mil

605 West – 338 units, $46 mil

This site is adjacent to the building in the photo above…

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Total Units – 1466

Total Investment – $257 million

This list adoes not include Diamond View III, overlooking the leftfield wall of the Durham Bulls park.

And yesterday I read of a new hotel 134 room hotel under consideration adjacent to the DPAC.

My feeling is that this much development is going to change things for Durham.

Love to read your comments on how you expect things to change for better, worse, and otherwise.

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