After nearly eight years of sitting mostly idle at a key gateway into downtown, Durham’s former police headquarters at 505 W. Chapel Hill Street is finally getting another shot at a new life. City officials have rebooted efforts to redevelop the four-acre site, pulling together a working group that is sketching out housing-heavy concepts and eyeing a developer selection as soon as this summer. The property has become a local flashpoint, with neighbors and council members torn between preserving the mid-century Milton Small building and squeezing more affordable housing onto the block.
Working group floats two housing-heavy scenarios
The city-convened working group is expected to roll out two early concepts for the site. In the preferred version, about 80 affordable apartments would land on the northwest corner of the block. An alternate concept would instead place roughly 55 low-income units on the southwest corner.
To keep those homes affordable over the long haul, the group has suggested using a long-term ground lease at a nominal cost. That tool is meant to give a future developer some financial breathing room while locking in affordability, according to CBS17.
Why the last deal fell apart
This is not Durham’s first attempt to reboot the old HQ. Negotiations with The Peebles Corporation collapsed last year after projected construction costs climbed and the developer’s subsidy requests followed suit, prompting the council to cut off talks and put full-site redevelopment on hold, according to ABC11.
City documents and prior reporting describe a deal squeezed by rising construction estimates and a changing downtown market that turned the earlier mixed-use proposal into a financial nonstarter. Officials have pointed to higher interest rates and a wave of new apartments downtown that undercut the revenue assumptions needed to make the numbers work. the council’s December decision to pause full-site redevelopment while staff studies alternatives has already been chronicled in detail.
Preservation push and temporary fixes
Even as the city chases new housing on part of the site, council members have signaled that they want to carve out room to save the Milton Small building itself. The idea on the table is to subdivide the property so the mid-century structure can be rehabilitated, while preservation groups work to market it to a suitable buyer…