NCCU Expansion Plan Presentation Delayed
The N&O reports today that NCCU's new plan to expand into the College View neighborhood will be delayed pending more information from the community. It seems clear that NCCU officials were a bit taken aback by the reaction to their community presentation of the master plan weeks ago, which met with a chilly reception.
Which shouldn't surprise anyone, although universities seem to feel they have a particular right to expand. Much like churches, their need to expand is usually adorned with self-affirming statements of the noble mission to improve humanity.
Call me more than a bit dubious that tearing down 136 houses to build new buildings and parking will lead to a net increase in community educational attainment.
When Central first started to expand across Fayetteville ~5-6 years ago, they made the decision to tear down several square blocks of houses in the College View community - many of them houses of prominent early to mid 20th century community leaders - as well as the old Hillside High School. I was on the board of Preservation Durham back then, and chairing their Endangered Properties program. We managed to move just one house - the Stanford Warren house - from Brant to Pekoe Street in order to save it from the wrecking ball. I'd characterize NCCU's attitude towards the historic houses as, well, impatient with the impediment.
Old Hillside and the surrounding neighborhood, 1950s. Fayetteville St. and NCCU are at the right side.
(Courtesy Herald-Sun)
I haven't really forgiven them for hacking into the neighborhood and its history, and destroying the landmark high school.
But I should have realized that their work isn't done - that they intend on dominating the spine of Fayetteville Street by tearing down the residential street frontage, and increasing intrusion into the neighborhood with space for buildings and a lot of parking.
Existing conditions.
Planned expansion.
I hope the city administration doesn't give NC Central a pass on this - they deserve at least the same scrutiny that Duke got for their Central Campus plans. At some point, NCCU will destabilize the College View neighborhood - anecdotally, they already have. We can bet that, when that happens, the solution will be further expansion of the campus.
Other than our enthusiastic approval of higher education bonds that made this (and the flock of construction cranes at UNC) possible, I question what purpose is served by expansion. To be clear, I feel the same way about Duke, UNC or any higher education institution. Is it just an arms race between campuses to provide more and more of what they perceive the Other Place to have? Kevin has more about project growth and the master plan with a typically insightful post at his site.
The question of expansion necessity aside, I give Central some credit for focusing more of their expansion on the Alston Ave corridor this time, which I think would be better served by some addition by subtraction. I think they could do more here. It's a bleak corridor - much of which is attributable to the width and sense of style that NCDOT wants to provide to Alston north of the Freeway. Dense expansion on this corridor would be more appropriate than spilling out to the east and west.
But I'm sure part of NCCU's expansion across Fayetteville is attributable to the fact that College View is just a nicer neighborhood; skinny Fayetteville is a more attractive, pedestrian negotiable street than the depressing, too-wide Alston. Will College View remain that way as its residents and historic housing are displaced?
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Much of NCCU's planned expansion, too, will sit on existing parking lots. I wonder where they plan to put all the new parking space that surely will be created. I didn't see parking accounted for in the plans (at least, not the ones hosted here).
Duke's parking situation is an often overlooked blighting of surrounding neighborhoods. The first five minutes of my commute each morning, though in my own neighborhood, are through Duke parking areas. I wish they would build a few decks or underground parking and consolidate that space. Or, hey, stop providing parking for employees and provide incentives to bike or take public transportation (incentives that include advocating for public transportation).
I'm going to disagree slightly with both Phillip and Gary here, but first I want to say I of course strongly agree about the problems with this plan with regards to preserving the neighborhood and not doing something about the nastiness that Alston is up at that end. That said...
Phillip: This is from Kevin's post today: "1,500 parking spaces would be added under the proposal, bringing Central up from a ratio of 0.24 parking spaces per person on campus to 0.4 through the construction of five proposed parking decks, many to be located adjacent to border roads like Alston Ave. and Lawson St. Surface parking lots would in many cases be replaced with new academic and campus buildings."
So in other words, the parking is going to go into decks, which as I frequently argue, is where it should be. Parking decks, done right, are the ideal way to transition from low density, auto-dominated development to higher density, pedestrian-friendly development. By putting cars in jail, effectively, people experience the streetscape more as pedestrians, which helps push development that direction. (I know, lots of hand-waving, but I don't want to get into the extended argument for it here.)
Gary: You ask what purpose is served by the expansion of these universities. There are two major, highly important reasons I can see for expanding NCCU. First, the population of North Carolina is exploding, with 1.4 million people added through migration and natural expansion between 1990 and 2000, with that rate largely continuing or even at times accelerating since. That growth has, of course, been largely focused in the Triangle area and the Charlotte area, and if North Carolina wants to continue its long tradition of widely available public education made free "as far as practicable," the University system simply has to expand. UNC and NCCU have already embarked on major expansion plans. ECU and UNC-C have undergone massive expansions to absorb the growth. NCCU is quite simply an obvious target for expansion, as the only regionally-focused public university in the Triangle. (The state is also very wisely undergoing a major ramp-up in the community college system, but that's not enough to absorb it all.)
Secondly, one of the most critical problems facing the health care system, outside of the ones most talked about in the political arena, is the shortage of nurses. The existing nursing schools in the state do not have the capacity to produce enough graduates to meet the demand that the baby boom retirement is going to demand. NCCU is, again, an obvious choice, based as it is in the "City of Medicine" and down the road from the state's largest hospital and smack in one of the fastest growing parts of the state.
Finally, Gary, I'm curious what parts of Alston you feel would be best served by "addition by subtraction." I'm actually surprised you haven't mentioned anything about Central elbowing out the old Holy Cross Catholic Church on Alston. Aside from that and the Burger King, if I'm reading Google Maps right, the rest of Alston immediately adjacent to Central is residential. Where could Central expand to on that side of the street that wouldn't involve demolitions? Or are the houses on Alston simply less historic?
On a barely related note, Aidil was on the agenda last night at INC about Alston Ave. Was anybody there, or has anyone seen reports? Any news?
Brianne Dopart was there and reported on the NC Biolab. Given the H-S's recent MO, I wonder if a forthcoming article on the Alston expansion is coming.
Michael, I don't see where we disagree. I did say about Duke, "I wish they would build a few decks or underground parking and consolidate that space."
By extension, same goes for NCCU. Glad to hear that parking will be concentrated in decks -- better in my mind if those decks were underground, underneath the buildings. (And not on the ground, with buildings on top, like the inaccessible Durham Centre).
I did also say that, to me, the best case scenario is not to provide parking but to instead provide incentive to do something other than drive. Maybe that's what you disagree with, and OK, but I'll stick to what I said.
Michael
It probably goes to my general disinterest in population expansion, which you posit as an accepted part of the argument. I'm happy with people moving downtown; ideally they'd move away from Southpoint because they want to be in a more urban environment. Unfettered population growth is not something I get rah-rah about, so the need to expand universities to meet that demand, while it ranks above expanding roadways to meet the demand for car travel, strikes me as solving the wrong problem. Hopefully those new dorms will have some hyper-low-flow fixtures.
I'm aware of NCCU's coveting the church, but I don't know enough of the background or details to say much about the interaction. Obviously, I'm interested in preserving the church.
My commentary about Alston revolves around these points:
1) If the university is hell-bent on expansion, and is going to tear down houses, I'd rather they tear down the, generally speaking, architecturally less-intact and historically less-significant to the history of Durham houses on Alston. A cut-our-historic-losses argument, as it were.
2) Alston, by virtue of its size, would better support high-density development than Fayetteville. Go up.
3) There are several abandoned commercial structures on the west side of Alston, closer to the Freeway. I never said they were contiguous, and I don't think a campus needs to be contiguous.
GK
Phillip,
I don't quibble with much there. The "disagreement" I think was that I was pointing out where the parking space was. Bad phrasing -- I haven't been quite awake all day.
Gary,
Fair enough. I'll point out that over 2/3 of North Carolina's population growth is in-migration rather than natural expansion. I'm interested in population growth in Durham because, hey, I like cities. But I do think we'll part ways on this to some degree. I'm pretty much open to a "let them sit in traffic" approach to road building, but however we got here, I'm interested in making sure that there's high quality public education available at all levels. I think there are ways of doing this without bulldozing historic neighborhoods, but I'm unsympathetic to cries that the neighborhoods matter ultimately and the demands of the university not at all.
(Somehow I forgot to hit "submit" on this yesterday. Oh, well -- here goes.)
Michael
I'm not sure who is claiming that the neighborhood's needs matter ultimately and the university's not at all - I know I'd never argue such a stark, dichotomous reduction of a complex interaction - I wouldn't have proposed better areas to tear down historic housing if I did. I've simply seen universities - and not just in Durham, not just in North Carolina - continually expand into contiguous neighborhoods. While it gets into an admittedly grayer area when painted as providing educational opportunities, I'm convinced that there is a facility arms race that drives much of this - and not all of those facilities are nursing anatomy labs - how fancy is the student center? How big the football stadium, etc. I'm not convinced that it's all or nothing on this side either - either we expand, or you're denying North Carolina its next generation of nurses or other noble profession.
GK
Better link to the original article about universities in an arms race for "necessities"
There is also the Echo Boomer Generation that is driving the growth of schools throughout the country. Gary this is not growth for growth's sake but to make sure that people have the opportunity to attend school.
I was also thinking of moving the "South of Cecil St." Expansion to "South of the Freeway between Alston and Fayetteville". There would probably be less displacement of occupied houses. The Nursing building could be a little closer to Lincoln.
I envision 2-3 story retail/residential/sm. office buildings along Fayetteville and Alston near the intersections. The institutional buildings and dorms would be towards the center of the area...mostly on the Fayette Place site w/ the residential area splitting the two North Campuses...
It is unfortunate that the school's administration seems to be ready to proceed with its expansion without thoroughly considering its impact on the neighborhood's history. First, the school's acquisition and almost certain destruction of the Edwards-Rivera house on Fayetteville Street is ironic given that Catherine Ruth Edwards helped establish the music department at the school, and the school still has the C. Ruth Edwards Music Hall located on campus. Even more interesing if my sources are correct, her husband, a former President of Kittrell College, was North Carolina's first African-American licensed architect. Second, I was reveiwing the Master Planand noticed that Merrick Street appeared not to be Merrick Street anymore. I don't even know what to say if that is truly what the plan includes.
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