[Durham INC] Duo transforming blight into might

[Ken Gasch]

Duo transforming blight into might


      Christine T. Nguyen/ The Herald-Sun Wendy Clark (left) and Chuck
Lewis, of Lewis & Clark Community Developers, are renovating a building on
Gilbert Street into a center for small businesses and nonprofit
organizations. The duo is putting $1.2 million into the renovations, and
they hope to welcome tenants on March. 1.
BY MONICA CHEN : The Herald-Sun
mchen at heraldsun.com
Dec 26, 2008

DURHAM -- From hosiery mill, to a farmer's cooperative, to a Hispanic
nightclub.

And by this spring, small-business owner Wendy Clark and real estate
developer Chuck Lewis are hoping a blighted, 91-year-old building near the
Cleveland-Holloway neighborhood will become a busy small business and
nonprofit center, home to burgeoning ventures and a host of workshops
enriching the local entrepreneurial community.

In September, Clark and Lewis purchased the 14,500-square-foot building at
801 Gilbert St. for $275,000. As Lewis & Clark Community Developers LLC,
they are putting $1.2 million into the renovations.

It'll be a speedy process. Upfitting began on Dec. 1. Working with Raleigh
architect Andy Lawrence, the pair is building open spaces on the main floor,
with walls that open to the roof above. An exhibit space will be in the
lobby.

By March 1, they hope the building will welcome its first tenants. Less than
one-third of the building has been leased.

Clark, 34, comes into the project with ample knowledge of the difficulties
of starting a small business and keeping it alive.

She founded her business, Carpe Diem Cleaning Inc. with just $100 and three
clients when she was only 20 years old. Steadily, she has grown it to what
it is today, with 18 employees and a client roster of 350 homes and
businesses. Along the business's 15-year history, Clark has hit numerous
speed bumps, one of which several years ago cost her dearly in reparations.

For the past seven years, she has also lived in Northeast Central Durham and
made combatting poverty a priority in her life. Clark knew Lewis from King's
Park International Church and convinced him to help in the project.

"I thought about how I could support other people in business," she said.
"The more a dollar passes through a community, the wealthier a community
is."

The building will include a meeting space with 90-person capacity that Clark
envisions could be used by churches on the weekends and host networking and
entrepreneurial workshops during the week.

Rents will be kept low. Office rents range from $295 to $595 a month for
180-430 square feet, which includes wireless access, work center, conference
rooms, and rental storage and multipurpose rooms.

Clark's own Carpe Diem offices will be in the center after moving from the
Snow Building, a Gothic, art deco structure on Main Street that is currently
being renovated by three Duke University alumni. Clark said the cost of her
office space at the Snow Building was going to double from about $700 to
more than $1,400 this year.

Businesses have shown a voracious appetite for office space in downtown
Durham, and the demand has kept up with renovations inside the square-mile
area. Total office space has increased from less than 2 million square feet
in 1998 to slightly less than 3 million square feet in 2008, according to
Karnes Research Co. Meanwhile, occupancy rate has remained high, at between
86 and 94 percent in the same period.

The typical 250-square-foot office suite is now leasing for $495 a month at
the Snow Building, according to one of the partners.

The Gilbert Street building could not be put on the National Register of
Historic Places, an unfortunate result of a fire that ended its days as a
Hispanic nightclub. The fire burned down the roof, which then was replaced
and became a "foundation" in a sense for the renovations.

However, Lewis & Clark was able to secure a commercial revitalization grant
of $177,000 from the city of Durham and secure the rest of the financing
from BB&T.

"We're trying to create space that will be under the market, for
entrepreneurs just starting out, just trying to move that Web site business
from their home to a more legitimate space," Lewis said. "We feel like it's
a good opportunity for businesses and local people to either start up
something or something that would serve the community and thereby reinvest
in that area."

The building will be named the John O'Daniel Business Center, and will be
nestled among other industrial/office buildings, including the Food Bank of
Durham, TROSA and the Triangle Brewing Co.

O'Daniel was one of the earliest African-American landowners in Hayti. The
building was built around 1917 as a hosiery mill and purchased in 1919 by
Julian Carr, who named it for O'Daniel, his "right-hand man" and former Carr
family slave.

According to Lewis & Clark, O'Daniel likely handled for Carr the recruitment
and hiring of black mill employees, a rare practice at the time.

After Carr's death, the building became The Farmers' Exchange, a farmers'
cooperative with 900 members by 1935. Small businesses thrived there in
"curb markets," where goods such as chickens, eggs, baked and pickled goods,
and vegetables were sold.

Clark hopes to increase communication between nonprofits and businesses at
the center and eventually combine the two business models into something
that could benefit the community.

"I love blighted buildings. I love seeing something and being able to create
something," Clark said.

© 2008 by The Durham Herald Company. All rights reserved.
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