INC NEWS - Barnes & Noble may go on Central Campus ("it has been discussed, " Peter Lange)

[John Schelp]

Duke gives details of Central Campus
by Paul Bonner, Herald-Sun, 22 March 2006   

Duke University gave its most detailed description yet
Tuesday night of a decades-long plan to recast its
Central Campus area, setting the likely price tag at
more than $240 million for a project that would
include 800,000 square feet of residential space, plus
commercial and academic buildings. 

But several of the 40 or so people who attended a
meeting in the basement of Asbury United Methodist
Church near East Campus voiced the same concern that
has cropped up at previous public airings of the
development: Will its retail operations harm nearby
Ninth Street? 

Duke Provost Peter Lange repeated earlier pledges that
Duke has no intention of supplanting enterprises on
Ninth Street or elsewhere. But he didn't rule out that
a new bookstore on Central Campus might be operated by
a national bookseller chain such as Barnes & Noble or
Borders. 

The prospect clearly bothered supporters of the
independent Regulator Bookshop on Ninth Street and one
of its owners who was present, Tom Campbell. 

Lange said the campus bookshop primarily would be a
textbook store for students, replacing one now in the
Bryan student center on West Campus. And he
acknowledged the Regulator's landmark status, as well
as concerns generally about Duke's effect on
surrounding businesses. 

"I don't want you to think that the kinds of things
you're saying are things I'm not attuned to or we're
not attuned to," Lange said. "It is going to be a
delicate process, and we have to have an ongoing
discussion about it. ... These meetings help sensitize
us to these things." 

A transportation plan for Central Campus could
encourage the juniors, seniors and graduate students
who will inhabit it to shop on Ninth Street, with a
new route to it dedicated to public transit, walking
and bicycles, Lange said. And the development will add
500 to 600 resident students, which one audience
member suggested could aid commerce in its vicinity. 

Central Campus, between Duke's East and West campuses,
is now dominated by outdated student apartments. The
university plans to replace them with new
apartment-style dorms with amenities such as
restaurants, the bookstore, a convenience store and a
gym, along with new academic buildings. 

The result, they say, will be a new "academic village"
that integrates the two existing campuses. 

Lange and Kemel Dawkins, Duke's vice president of
campus services, presented slides showing a cruciform
configuration for the first phase of the redevelopment
centering at Anderson Street south of Erwin Road and
the new bus-pedestrian route Duke Way, about where
Yearby Avenue is now. 

Roughly 800,000 square feet of new residential
buildings are on three quadrants, with academic
buildings on the southeastern corner. The latter may
house dance, film, theater and documentary studies
facilities, as well as consolidate various programs in
international studies that are now dispersed and
isolated, Lange said. 

The site also will house new career and alumni
centers. The cost likely will be greater than the $240
million rough estimate by Executive Vice President
Tallman Trask in Monday's Chronicle student newspaper,
he said. 

The university officials said the plan also integrates
well with adjacent Sarah Duke Gardens and increases
green space near it and toward Alexander Avenue on the
east side. 

Although with future phases the project will take
decades to build, the university faces some urgency to
get started: It aims to open apartments in fall 2008,
which means utility work could begin late this summer,
Lange said. 

When questioned by John Schelp, president of the Old
West Durham Neighborhood Association, whether Barnes &
Noble or Borders might run the bookstore, Lange said
"it has been discussed," and that he "can't exclude"
the possibility. 

That prospect raises red flags, Schelp said. 

"I can see how it would raise yellow flags," Lange
acknowledged. 

Campbell said he questions the plan, given the
competition to his store it poses. 

"I like to think we are one of the premiere literary
bookstores in the country," Campbell said. "This is
going to be a huge store there, only a quarter-mile
from us." 

Watts Hospital-Hillandale neighborhood resident Tom
Miller emphasized the Regulator's role, along with the
former Wellspring Grocery and Ninth Street Bakery, in
revitalizing Ninth Street years ago. The former two
stores have since moved, although Wellspring, now
Whole Foods, remains nearby on Broad Street. 

"Those of us who recognized what happened don't want
to mess it up," Miller said. 

One person, however, said the Regulator and the "big
box" booksellers would seem to have different
clienteles. Besides, no one can expect not to face
competition, and Duke's investment and higher student
population on Central Campus should benefit the
surrounding area in other ways, said Mark Critzer. 

"So I think some of the worries are misplaced," he
said. 

[JS: For three years, Duke officials have repeatedly
said they'd do nothing to undermine Ninth Street. A
campus Barnes & Noble wouldn't have to pay property
taxes while the Regulator does.]