January 18, 2005

Published in Wake Forest, NC

            Some of the possibilities they entertained included:

• adding town funds to the Downtown Revitalization Corporation’s budget so it can hire an experienced professional downtown manager.

• finding incentives to encourage property owners to renovate their buildings for better appearance and to lower heating and cooling costs for the tenants.

• streamlining the approval process for developers who want to build in downtown.

• continuing with the town’s investments in downtown, which include the new town hall, renovating the streetscape along South White Street, the roundabout at South Main and the seminary campus and future roundabouts and medians on South Franklin Street.

• increasing the downtown service district – the area along South White that has an extra 10 cents on the property tax that is paying off the debt for the interior parking lot between Jones and Wait avenues – to include all of the Renaissance Plan area or set other boundaries.

            Everyone seemed in agreement that a professional downtown manager is needed. “That one person dedicated to that project can do an awful lot that all the business leaders, all the merchants cannot do” because they are volunteers, Town Manager Mark Williams said.

            Mayor Vivian Jones said one thing the town can do to help the DRC would be for Williams, Planning Director Chip Russell and town attorney Eric Vernon meet with the DRC’s board to discuss “the kind of person they need to hire, the direction they need to go in to maintain the support of the town.”

            Vernon had suggested the town and DRC together could offer economic incentives such as certificates of participation, called COPS, that offers bonds for qualified developers for specific projects. Both Raleigh and Durham have used COPS to help invigorate their downtowns.

            Tom Iversen, chairman of the DRC, said Tuesday the committee is interviewing this week and next for a manager to replace Kara Loftin, who left to take a position in Atlanta.

            “That kind of help, I would never turn down,” Iversen said about the town’s possible help with the salary. The starting point, as advertised by the DRC, was $32,000 for a fulltime position. There were murmurs of $60,000 or more during the retreat.

            When the DRC’s executive board envisioned what the job could become in the next few years, Iversen said, “it was clear the person who would fill the job would be a higher horsepower person” and the ideal candidate might need a higher salary than advertised.

            “We have three strong candidates,” Iversen said, “one very strong.”

            He had not heard about the discussion Friday and Saturday.

            Some of the problems in downtown are almost intractable, Russell and Commissioner Margaret Jones Stinnett said, because they are longtime property owners who refuse to renovate their buildings, which have leaky roofs, water in the basements, outdated wiring and no insulation. The tenants, the business owners, cannot afford to do the upgrades because their electric bills can run as high as $1,200 a month.

            Several business owners are contemplating moving or closing, Stinnett said. “A lot of them are not going to be there for two more years.”

            Many of the business owners are billed at the town’s large commercial electric rate. Deputy Town Manager Roe O’Donnell said the town could look at those businesses which are on the edge between large and small commercial. “We can put on load-profile meters and see what kind of usage they have over a month’s time.” Depending on how the business’s peak use compares to the town’s overall peak use, they could be placed on a coincident peak rate which might save them some money. A business which has left downtown to move to The Factory, Works of Clay, was on the coincident peak rate.

            Another idea O’Donnell proposed was for the business to install a new heat pump with the town having load management control over the heat strips. There is a $300 rebate for that program, and he said the town might consider increasing the amount. The town also offers a rebate to anyone who improves the efficiency of their air conditioning compressor.

            The town can also provide energy audits for the buildings that would pinpoint what could be done to improve their energy efficiency. “If they (owners) chose not to do it, there’s nothing we can do,” Williams said.

            A future project – a study of the town’s electric rate structure – may also benefit business owners, Williams said. This would be the first comparative rate structure study since the early 1990s. At that time, Williams said, “the board made a conscious decision to keep the residential rates as competitive as possible and put the pain on the commercial.” Since then, there has been an increase in commercial customers. The study, done without charge by Electricities, will be complete in the fall.

            One of the more contentious programs – the town providing generators for businesses – got a thorough airing.

            The town buys or leases the generators, maintains them and can switch them on whenever overall town use nears a peak load. The business pays back the generator cost over time, and the town saves money.

            “Wal-mart makes us approximately $100,000 a year,” O’Donnell said, and if we didn’t offer the generator they would have gone with a competitor (Progress Energy).”

            Putting a generator downtown is difficult if not impossible, O’Donnell said. First is the problem of where to put it. He had searched with one property owner and never found a suitable site. And, “It’s a waste of time unless you have insulation.”

            Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary is installing a “big, big generator” at its new operations center on North Avenue that will be capable of running all its facilities, O’Donnell said. It will have one metering point for electricity from the town.

            Stinnett also said that, in her opinion, much of the property for sale in downtown is overpriced. Her mother sold the longtime home of the family business, Jones Hardware, for $80,000 10 years ago, Stinnett said, and the current owners have it listed for $450,000.

            Commissioner Stephen Barrington said he had priced property around Carolina House and found the owners are asking $8, $9 and $10 a square foot.

            One recent positive step, the commissioners noted, is the new Hale Building.

            Commissioner David Camacho said the town can foster similar building, perhaps by identifying available parcels and streamlining the approval process for high-end, multi-use buildings (office, retail, residential), backing some of the financing and helping to find tenants.

            Camacho said he wants “to make it easy and profitable for people to come in and build in downtown,” particularly upscale projects.

            “I would love to see downtown projects fast-tracked,” Commissioner Frank Drake said. “Whatever bait we can put out for the deer.”

            Craig Briner, one of the owners of the Wake Forest Plaza and nearby land, has offered a three-story, multi-use building, high-end townhouses and the completion of Brooks Street as his future plans if the town chooses the DAB site for the new town hall. (That decision will come in March.)

            But, Russell said, Briner has not yet submitted any plans. Williams said he and Briner had discussed joint projects such as a parking deck. “We’re still willing to look at that.”

            Russell reminded the board that fixing up a street does nothing to fill a storefront, citing Fayetteville where the same buildings are empty after years of cosmetic changes. “You’ve got to go a step further to push economic restructuring. We’ve got a huge population within a five-minute walk to downtown, but there’s nothing there to walk to.”

            The DRC now has an economic restructuring committee, and it is tentatively scheduled to meet with business and property owners on Tuesday, Jan. 24, with time and place to be announced.

            The downtown service district was established in the 1980s to pay for the off-street parking lot between Jones and Wait avenues with a 10-cent per $100 tax. It raises about $30,000 a year, of which half has to pay the parking debt. There is about $48,000 in an unrestricted fund. The parking lot debt is nearly paid off.

            The commissioners will discuss during their March work session whether to expand the district and what its purpose would be.