Xerxes Wilson

The News Journal

A construction crane cast a shadow over busy North Market Street Thursday, just hours after police found a man dying in a pool of blood under the white Christmas lights lining the entertainment corridor.

The crane, an unfamiliar sight in the city recently, marks construction of hundreds of new apartments off Market Street and is part of hundreds of millions of dollars in private investment and tax revenue being poured into the growing area.

The victim's bloodstain is a sight local business owners fear will add to concerns about the safety of the street, a perception that threatens efforts to make Market Street one of the state's premier destinations for dining and entertainment.

"It is the worst nightmare for anybody that is doing anything positive for downtown," said Bryan Sikora, owner of La Fia and Merchant Bar on Market Street as well as Cucina LoLo downtown. "There are people who live a mile away that would never come downtown for anything. This doesn't help."

Little is known about how 35-year-old Melvin J. Smith, a Wilmington resident, came to be at the corner of 9th and Market streets. Police were called to the intersection shortly after 9 p.m. Wednesday to find him on the pavement bleeding heavily from a stab wound to his neck. He died shortly after at Christiana Hospital.

Police have not yet said how they believe the homicide occurred. Business owners say the incident will just reaffirm perceptions about the city.

"It seems like there is a misinterpretation of the whole city as Murder Town and all that stuff is misconstrued most of the time," said Joe Van Horn, owner of Chelsea Tavern and Ernest & Scott Taproom, which is a few feet from where the victim was found. "That is the everyday battle. To be perfectly honest, it is not dangerous. It is uncomfortable."

Wilmington Police Chief Bobby Cummings agreed with the incorrect perception about the safety of everyday people in the city. That's partially because suburbanites don't care to differentiate the dangers of West Center City or Hilltop from the Triangle Neighborhood, Trolley Square or downtown.

"The perception is created because people have limited information about what is occurring," said Police Chief Bobby Cummings. "People lump the city into one big mass."

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Smith is the 28th person killed in the city this year, and the third to die from stab wounds.

Statistics were not immediately available, but Cummings said the Market Street area is relatively safe compared to some of the city's hotbeds of violent crime. It's also the part of the city with the greatest security presence.

Along with city police, the 32 yellow-jacketed "safety ambassadors" every day roam the 70-block business improvement district that includes Market Street until 11 p.m. The ambassadors are meant to be a deterrent and the "eyes and ears" of the police department, said Martin Hageman executive director of Downtown Visions, a nonprofit formed to manage Wilmington's Business Improvement District.

The area is also blanketed by 25 security cameras managed by Downtown Visions and available to law enforcement. Some of the downtown properties also employ private security.

The fact the area is blanketed with cameras hints at a larger problem.

Most of the city's homicides occur between two people who know each other and have some feud. They are often premeditated assassinations where a person is gunned down on the sidewalk with the killers sliding off into the night in a passing car or on foot, Cummings said.

"When an individual has an issue with another person they pick the time and place where these things occur," Cummings said. "We try to be the in the right places where these things occur and generally things like that do not occur in that [Market Street] area."

Hageman was more blunt.

"Things like video cameras are great if you see two people arguing," Hageman said. "But if there is a premeditated murder that is going to happen, you can't stop it."

However effective, the increased security downtown has paralleled millions in private investment as well as millions in tax revenue being allocated to the street.

Buccini/Pollin Group, likely the largest property owner downtown, has laid out a $125 million investment between Fourth and Ninth streets that will create three apartment communities with a combined 390 units.

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Rob Buccini, co-president of the development group, did not return a phone call seeking comment. In an email, he said the homicide changes nothing about his group's plans.

“When revealed, I believe the circumstances of this particular crime will affirm that the downtown is safe," Buccini wrote. "Neither this incident, nor any other will deter our commitment to our city and its growth.”

Though the security presence is greater than it has been since the National Guard occupation in the 1960s, Sikora said policing can't solve everything.

"You see more people on the block policing than people walking around," Sikora said. "Industry needs to pick up in Wilmington as well as population. We have a lot of empty office buildings. There needs to be companies coming in here."

Hageman said about 2,000 people currently live downtown. The goal is to more than double that number of the coming decade to create a "critical mass" of working professionals constantly walking the street.

"That puts a 24-hour presence of people on the street that are consumers," Hageman said.

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Brett Morris has owned A.R. Morris Jewelers on Market Street since the late 1980s. He was there when Market Street was bustling with banking professionals and DuPonters. He said the idea that Market Street is unsafe is a misperception.

"It is not a crime issue. It is not a safety issue," Morris said. "The biggest aspect is that people feel uncomfortable."

Wilmington is the center of the state's social services for the homeless and impoverished. Panhandling and other things that come from a concentration of the poor make Market Street a hard sell for well-to-do suburbanites who might otherwise enjoy avoiding the mall to shop, business owners said.

"People confuse that with a safety issue ... We need those services but there needs to be a balance," Morris said. "It is the biggest problem the city needs to tackle."

Contact Xerxes Wilson at (302) 324-2787 or xwilson@delawareonline.com. Follow @Ber_Xerxes on Twitter.