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Sometime this week the staff and the
furniture for the W.E.B. DuBois
Community Development Corporation should
be all moved if not all settled into
their new offices in what was first John
Lyon’s grocery store and then the
housing office for Southeastern Baptist
Theological Seminary.
The exact date is contingent
on the town inspectors clearing the new
offices for occupancy.
On Friday staff members and
furniture were in both the South White
Street storefront where they had two
floors and under 4,000 square feet of
space and in the new quarters on North
White Street where they will have 10,000
square feet. The land-line telephones
had been switched to the new office, but
the cable for internet and
communications was still only at the old
office, as were most of the desks and
other furniture.
Executive Director Bettie
Murchison is excited about the new
quarters that offer room for all the
current facets of the mental health
counseling program the CDC runs under
contract from the Wake County Human
Services Department. There is an office
for an alcohol and substance abuse
counselor, room for an accounting
department, two conference rooms and a
computer lab, plus more.
There is room for an
after-school program for area children,
Murchison said, and they can safely walk
to and from the program along Spring
Street.
The Mouse in the House
program, which gives rebuilt donated
computers and computer equipment to
youngsters and senior citizens, will be
back in business in a bay at the back.
The Wake Forest Kiwanis Club, White
Street Computers and the CDC will work
on the program this year. Don Rich, one
of the owners of White Street Computers,
was in the new offices Friday, unpacking
the used telephones he had saved for the
CDC.
In the back of the building,
there are concrete block walls now where
there once was storage for the grocery
store. After some paint by youth
volunteers from some area churches, the
space will be the food pantry with
direct access to a back door and parking
area. There will be a clothing closet,
and space for an exercise/relaxation
area for the staff. “I care very much
about the well-being of people who work
for me,” Murchison said.
Next door to the old housing
office but still in the former grocery
store, there is a large space with a
catwalk that Cathee Miller, the
coordinator for special programs, says
is ideal for a drama group/drama camp.
In front of that space, Murchison
gestured around the large open space,
saying, “The stage will be here, and we
can put a box office at the front.” The
space could also be rented to
individuals and groups for events, she
said, and will be ideal for the regular
required supervisory meetings of the
entire counseling staff, about 100
people.
There are two more
storefronts in the mini-strip mall, and
Murchison is formulating plans for both.
The one next to the CDC would be ideal
for a daycare center, she said, and
someone has suggested to her that a Head
Start program could go in that space.
At the end, the storefront
could be a small grocery store.
Murchison said she is talking with IGA
(Independent Grocers Alliance) and other
small grocery chains about a store that
could offer meat, produce “and healthy
foods. Not health foods, but healthy
foods” that could be in addition to the
basics the next-door CVS drug store
plans to offer.
Since Winn-Dixie left Wake
Forest Plaza and moved to its ill-fated
site on Durham Road (N.C. 98), the CVS
store has sold milk, canned foods and
other staples. Murchison said it was her
understanding the store would continue
to do so once it moves to the building
under construction at Roosevelt Avenue
and North White Street.
The CDC is undergoing a
burst of activity. Late last year the
nonprofit opened a second office in
Fuquay-Varina to serve the counseling
program clients in the area and add
more. Murchison said they will add more
services as people in the area request
them.
The entire corner at
Roosevelt and North White is owned by a
Raleigh corporation, Evanston Horner LLC,
which was organized by James T. Street
II. Street, who lived in the Wake Forest
area until recently and owns several CVS
stores. In late 2005, he purchased the
corner from James Holding, who owned the
land fronting on Roosevelt, and from
John and Barbara Lyon, who owned the
mini-strip mall. |
