INC NEWS - how does Central Campus car wash support Duke's academic mission?

[John Schelp]

Dear neighbor,

While a university bookstore on Central Campus may
support the academic mission of the school, a car wash
crosses the line (see today's N&O article below). 

Duke officials will have a hard time trying to
convince folks that a car wash somehow supports the
academic mission of the university. Three car washes
are within spitting distance of Duke's Central Campus.
More than a dozen people work at Couch's on Markham
Ave.

This is a perfect example of why we needed community
representatives on the planning committees (a request
refused by Duke officials). 

While a bar could go into one of the three restaurants
in our agreement of on-campus retail uses... a car
wash, and some of the other retail proposals,
represent clear violations of that agreement (a retail
agreement that Duke officials are desperately trying
to ignore). 

You can see the campus retail list (approved in votes
of support by the partnership neighborhoods and the
InterNeighborhood Council) at
http://www.owdna.org/duke.htm.

Duke can say they'll do nothing to harm nearby
businesses all they want. But, a car wash on Central
would threaten locally-owned car washes near Duke. 

A car wash would keep money on campus and out of
Durham. And that's what this is all about.

~John Schelp

****

Central Campus gets wary eye: What Duke's makeover of
the area might include concerns some business
operators
(News & Observer, 28 April 2005)

As Duke University inches toward a total makeover of
its Central Campus, early brainstorming sessions
involving faculty, staff and students have produced a
wish list of housing types and amenities that include
everything from a bookstore and Duke-paraphernalia
outlet to a car wash, salon and bars.

That's a potential redevelopment track that those
helping to plan the project say might be necessary to
attract Duke seniors who traditionally eschew
on-campus housing. It's also the sort of development
that might make those living closest to noisy
off-campus student apartments happy but leave those
with businesses near campus in a bind.

"Its a double-edged sword," said John Dagenhart,
president of the Trinity Park Neighborhood
Association. Trinity Park borders Duke's East Campus
and this year has been the scene of a bikini-clad
wrestling match in baby oil and other disruptive
parties busted up by police.

"Having those kinds of amenities on campus may very
well make the campus and its housing more attractive
to students but may harm the merchants trying to do
business in the area," Dagenhart said.

Duke's Central Campus is a 200-acre area that is home
to 1970s-era dorms, an electrical substation, a
convenience store, green spaces, undeveloped tracts,
parking lots and mill worker housing dating to the
early 1900s.

The university has indicated that Central Campus will
become the center of a new urban "university village"
where school officials hope a growing number of
seniors will choose to live near graduate and
professional students. Duke Provost Peter Lange said
the university has an interest in offering its
students educational and social guidance along with
increasing levels of responsibility and independence
over the course of four years.

Talk has circulated that Duke will bring to campus
retail stores that run the gamut from the Gap to The
Container Store. Neighborhood activists and business
boosters have written letters to newspapers decrying
the potential impact on businesses near the
university.

John Schelp, president of the Old West Durham
Neighborhood Association, said the university has
backed away from earlier agreements not to build
retail stores that would attract off-campus traffic or
remove any impetus for students to leave. Old West
Durham includes the mom-and-pop commercial strip along
Ninth Street that is frequented by Duke students. Now,
Schelp said, the community is limited to commenting on
Duke's plans after they are formed.

Lange says the university is open to community
comments at public meetings but has made no effort to
negotiate the complex array of community concerns with
select individuals because the development process
remains in its infancy.

Carol Anderson lives in Trinity Park and owns Vaguely
Reminiscent, a Ninth Street boutique that she fears
would be at a competitive disadvantage if certain
types of stores were allowed to operate on Central
Campus. Anderson, who had not seen the wish list
developed by four university committees last month,
said she supports commercial operations that clearly
serve an academic purpose.

"A car wash," she said. "What does that have to do
with education? ... When you provide everything, there
is no need for students to interact with the
community."

Lange said this week that he is aware of a certain
level of community distrust and fear about Duke's
Central Campus plan. Lange said he hopes a public
meeting that was held in February and future efforts
will assuage community concerns.

"I think that what you are seeing in some of those
proposals is people thinking out loud," Lange said. "I
have said repeatedly that we have no desire to make
Ninth Street or any of the other commercial operations
nearby less attractive to students."

Duke will share the latest incarnation of its plan at
a 7 p.m. meeting May 5 at Asbury United Methodist
Church at 806 Clarendon St.