Oakwood Park is now open!

Neighborhood children play and scream with glee.

ABC11 did some wonderful news coverage on build day and came out in force to help renovate the park.
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/local&id=9296537


Thank you ABC11, Disney, Kaboom, Keep Durham Beautiful, Durham Parks & Rec, and of course Cleveland Holloway neighbors and friends!

You can help with Oakwood Park's makeover

Help revitalize Oakwood Park: volunteer for a playground build on 10/31 or 11/2

Over 200 volunteers are needed on October 31st and November 2nd to revitalize downtown Durham and help create an amazing new community-built playspace in Oakwood Park at the corner of Holloway and Dillard/Oakwood streets. Be a part of this incredible project, planned and organized by Cleveland-Holloway neighbors, in partnership with the City of Durham Parks and Recreation Department, Keep Durham Beautiful, KaBOOM!, ABC11 and The Walt Disney Company. Bring your enthusiasm – no building skills are necessary!

Volunteer opportunities are described below. To volunteer, please fill out our online form. A volunteer coordinator will contact you prior to build day to confirm your participation.

Prep day volunteers, Thursday, October 31, 8am to 5pm

Prep Day volunteers work on getting all of the materials ready for the Build Day. They split into teams based on what people feel comfortable with and excited about. The team tasks may include, but are not limited to:

• Unloading and inventorying the playground equipment truck, The Home Depot delivery, and tools.
• Sorting the parts and hardware for sections of the playground so that Build Day teams have everything they need – each section will be packaged at a kit for teams to construct on the build day.
• Cutting wood and sorting hardware for constructing the benches and other side projects – each bench, table, etc. will be packaged as a kit for teams to construct on the build day. All the wood will be cut on Prep Day, so the only power tools used on site on Build Day can be drills.
• Painting/prepping materials for the children’s projects – which may include stepping stones, small murals, etc.
• Sorting and prepping garden materials and getting the gardens ready for planting.
• Helping the hole digging team preparing the site for posts that will be set; potentially setting some posts that need to be in early

Build Day volunteers, Saturday, November 2, 8am to 3pm

In a matter for hours, we will build a brand new playground designed by children in our community and have tons of fun! Build Day volunteers will be randomly assigned to teams when they arrive (by a sticker on their nametag). These teams will have a wide variety of tasks, which could include:  

• Playground component assembly and installation
• Mulch movement onto the playground footprint
• Cement mixing and pouring to put the posts and side projects in place
• Landscaping and gardening (moving dirt for gardens, planting things, etc.)
• Building lumber side projects (i.e. benches, picnic tables, etc.)
• Painting (asphalt games, decorative items)
• Food preparation and service
• Safety support
• Registration table
• Youth supervision

Breakfast and lunch will be provided. Volunteers may move around if their initial task is finished and a different team could use support. All volunteers will be a part of clean-up team.

The Local Historic District Expansion

by: Tiffany Graves

"On June 21, 2010, the Planning Department received a citizen petition to expand the 

Holloway Street Local Historic District. The request was to expand the local district to 

align with the National Register Historic District boundary increase that was recently 

established."

"Planning staff surveyed an area slightly larger than the National Register district to 

determine the appropriate boundary for the local district."

-Holloway Local Historic District Expansion and Preservation Plan Update

http://durhamnc.gov/ich/cb/ccpd/Documents/DPC/Agendas/2013/July/X1000003_Z1200030.pdf-

And so began the possible changes to the Cleveland Holloway Local Historic District (LHD) boundaries.

The proposed map would be a large addition to the current boundaries which mostly only include a couple of blocks on Holloway street and Cleveland street (below in blue).  The Planning Commission put forth a map for approval with two separate options: one that includes the green area below and one that excludes the green area from the LHD (Alternatives A & B). 

Easy as pie, right?  Wrong (and by the way, I've messed up my share of pies).

Changing land boundaries and zoning is usually never easy, and it probably shouldn't be.  There are a few land owners that have stepped forward and said they don't want to be inside dotted, striped line (properties shown in red).  A note that our beloved green-thumb neighbors, SEEDs, have also requested not to be added but are not highlighted in red.  Each of these owners have their own varied and valid reasons. 

Many neighbors have prominently voiced concerns about including (or not including) the 600 block of Queen street, the western-most of the red areas.  Remember the Alternative A & B above, the green highlighted land?  Yes, there is the main area of contention.  

There are, of course, reasons for this neighbor concern including that the land there has much more dense zoning and the entire square block is now vacant and ready to be developed.  Basically, something will be built-up there probably soon.  Planning by its current owners has already begun.  So, several in the neighborhood think it's appropriate for that land to be put in the LDH in order to ensure that what ever is developed there is appropriately scaled and maintains the history of the area.  The land had contained historically-contributing homes for over a century.  Other issues such as traffic, lack of neighborhood parking and sidewalks, housing diversity and affordability also weigh in.

A Planning Commission meeting occurred on July 9th where most would agree confusion surrounding the actual map was a major factor.  The vote ended in a tie on accepting the boundary increase with Alternative A.  The process now moves to the City Council where we wait to see what will happen next.

Stay tuned!

If you want more information on the issue please read the PDF linked above.  

OpEd - "Keep character of Cleveland Holloway"

A few neighbors did an Op-Ed for The Herald Sun about the local historic district, including the 600 block of Queen Street.
There will be a Planning Commission hearing on July 9th at City Hall.  Come out to show your support.
Contact us for any questions.

Moving House

Cleveland-Holloway was treated to something of a parade last week. Two historic homes were moved--very sowly-- from Queen Street to lots on Gurley Street. The houses will be renovated and made available for sale.

Won’t you be my neighbor?

Welcome to the Third Annual Cleveland-Holloway Home Tour!

11am-3pm on Saturday, November 6th

The self-guided tour begins at 501 Oakwood Ave


Around 1890 the city of Durham expanded its boundaries to include our neighborhood. Homes built here were for merchants, and factory workers-- largely Greek and Russian Jews who had immigrated to the area for work. Between the 1940s and 1960s the area gradually became a predominantly African-American community.

Unfortunately a variety of forces, including redlining (banks would not lend money in African-American neighborhoods) and urban flight resulted in a period of disinvestment in downtown Durham and its surrounding neighborhoods.

Despite this sustained period of scant resources and investment many of our residents have called the neighborhood home for 20 and some 40 years, and recently there has been much cause for celebration!

By 2009 the entire neighborhood was granted National and State historic district status, offering tax credits for the rehabilitation of homes. Cleveland and Holloway Streets have local historic district status, which offers protections-- the rest of the neighborhood is under consideration by the City for the same.

Things are happening fast in Cleveland-Holloway. Since our first home tour in May 2008, over thirty homes have experienced, or are undergoing, substantial rehabilitation. The list goes on: two new homes have been built on vacant lots; mixed-use residential development project in downtown Durham has been built by Center Studio Architecture at Mangum 506; Wendy Clark has rehabbed the John O’Daniel building as a business incubator; and Triangle Brewing Company has set-up shop in one of the large warehouses near SEEDS.

We have a vibrant neighborhood organization, an active list serve, and a neighborhood blog.

We would love for you to buy one of our available homes and to call YOU neighbor.

Article from the Triangle Business Journal

This article by Amanda Jones Hoyle, Durham downtown’s Historic Revival, appeared in today's Triangle Business Journal.

DURHAM – The Victorian-style house with a wide wrap-around porch in Durham’s historic Cleveland-Holloway neighborhood has certainly seen better years.

On multiple occasions, the two-story building at 501 Oakwood St. has faced the threat of demolition.

Many of the windows have been boarded up, and the foundation had started to sag. It has been decades since it felt the brush of a fresh coat of paint.

But the Clapp-Ferguson House at the corner of Ottawa Avenue is getting a new lease on life, thanks partly to a group of preservationists that has secured valuable historical tax credits for its buyers. The group also helps that the home is in a neighborhood that’s become popular among artists, musicians, young families.

The home and the neighborhood are evidence of urban redevelopment that has slowly graced the fringes of Durham’s downtown district over the past couple of decades.

In the 1980s, it was the historic Trinity Park neighborhood that became the neighborhood of choice for many of Duke University's administrators, faculty and students. That was followed by an eastward movement into the Old North Durham, Watts Hospital-Hillandale and Trinity Heights neighborhoods.

In recent years, families have been targeting homes in the Walltown, Cleveland-Holloway and east Durham neighborhoods, says unofficial Durham historian Gary Kueber, who has been tracking the causes and effects through his Endangered Durham blog. Kueber also is chief operating officer for one of Durham’s most active commercial redevelopment companies, Scientific Properties.

“House prices fall to a very low per-square-footage cost. They become undesirable areas. Then a few people who love the architecture and want the experience of being close to downtown decide to take the plunge,” Kueber says. “They begin renovating these houses and transforming the neighborhood.”

Renovation specialists Trinity Design/Build of Durham usually has 10 to 15 projects going on around Durham’s historic neighborhoods at any given time, says construction manager Alan Spruyt. “Older properties in older neighborhoods are more likely to appreciate,” Spruyt says. “These are beautiful old houses, and people are eager to live in one.”

But even the well-preserved older homes usually need a fair amount of upgrading and rehabilitation work. Trinity Design/Build is completing an overhaul of the 2,600-square-foot home at 1011 Monmouth Ave. in Trinity Park that was home to multiple generations of the same family before it was sold to Trinity Design/Build’s investors in 2009.

The renovators were able to keep the casements and plaster arches of a dining room window and add radiant floor heat for the rooms downstairs and the bathrooms upstairs.

But the project hit a few snags that aren’t uncommon in historic renovations. For one, contractors discovered a buried heating oil tank in the yard that had to be removed.

Courtney James, managing broker of the Urban Durham Realty real estate firm, says most buyers are looking for homes that have already been renovated. Only a brave few are willing to buy an older home that still needs rehabilitation.

A big selling point of these homes is walkability to shopping areas and to downtown. “People want to be close to amenities,” James says. “They may not be walking there every time, but they want to know they can if they want to.”

Kevin Davis and his wife already live in Trinity Park, about one mile north of downtown, but the couple recently purchased a 1920s-era home on Gloria Avenue to be even closer to downtown – just two blocks from Durham’s Brightleaf Square and two blocks from the new Bull City Connector bus line. “It’s the perfect place to live,” he says.

“On a national level, this is a niche trend with a lot of cities looking to get away from longer commutes. Raleigh has seen it with its Five Points and Oakwood neighborhoods. Durham is seeing this, too,” Davis says. “It used to be after 5:30 you could drive through downtown and see no one on the streets. Now, we have activity centers bringing people in,” referring to recent projects at the American Tobacco campus, construction of the Durham Performing Arts Center and other pockets of downtown development or redevelopment over the last few years.

The Cleveland-Holloway neighborhood caught the attention of partners Adrian Brown and Kevin Flynn last year when the neighborhood offered a tour. “It was hilarious in a way because you usually see these tours in established places like Trinity Park with really expensive homes,” Flynn says.

Cleveland-Holloway still has its pockets of vacant homes, homes in disrepair and crime, Flynn says, “but you could see this glimmer of hope.”

Flynn and Brown, who works for the Greater Durham Chamber of Commerce, had been considering a move closer into the city and were drawn to the Clapp-Ferguson House that Preservation Durham and Preservation North Carolina were struggling to save.

Durham real estate investor Ken Gasch had already started work to shore up the home’s foundation and to replace the floor joists, and now a sales contract with Flynn and Brown will fund the rest of the renovation. About another $100,000 worth of work is needed before they begin moving in furniture.

“We are definitely not pioneers,” Brown says, “Artists, musicians and students have been coming here for 10 years, braving it out. But it was just an attractive place to both of us.”

Ottawa Street Renovations win Neighborhood Preservation Award

Congratulations to Helena Cragg and Sylvia J. Williams of SYNERGY ENTERPRISES LLC!!

They were awarded a 2010

Preservation Durham Neighborhood Conservation Award for the renovation of 405 & 407 Ottawa Street Houses (1928).