The N.C. School of Science and Math wants to expand but its land is maxed out. Thus, it appears some of the trustees may be eyeing property in the adjacent neighborhood on Durham’s Broad Street. Seems fine to me as long as they can work out an agreement with a willing buyer(s). The problem is, what if the school insists on expanding but can’t get agreements with the owner(s) of the land/building(s) it wants? One neighborhood activist is already worried. From the Herald-Sun:
Science and Math Chancellor Gerald Boarman has signaled he doesn’t see any land buys coming as a result of the campus plan Ayers Saint Gross is working on. But he has also noted that it’s not the last campus plan the school will ever have, said Ned Kennington, an activist in the Watts Hospital-Hillandale Neighborhood Association.
Boarman “was very clear [a land buy] was off the table for this master plan,” Kennington said. “But the notion there’d be another campus master plan in five or six years would seem to indicate it’s not something we can quit worrying about.”
An area real estate broker wonders about the future and if government’s eminent domain power will be invoked:
Businesspeople who work on the block aren’t necessarily opposed to the school buying a building or two, provided it dealt only with willing sellers.
“If they buy some of the properties on the east side of Broad, and put into it the same kind of care they’ve into the main campus, that could be a good thing,” said Ellen Dagenhart, a real-estate broker who works in the agency there. “But I suppose if they were to be able to do eminent domain and forcefully purchase property, my opinion would change.”
