A small town with big ambitions

ABOUT THIS ARTICLE: Belville is a very small town I cover in Brunswick County, N.C. Its residents have complained the town doesn't offer enough services and has signed with an out-of-town developer too fast to revamp its downtown. I wrote this story before the contract was signed, but it gives a face to the town's big plans, shedding some light on how they would affect its longtime residents -- even displacing them -- and force them to adapt.

WILMINGTON STAR-NEWS
August 5, 2007
Belville reborn
Longtime dream for a new downtown now closer to reality
By Ana Ribeiro

Belville | Boxes of pictures crowd Eunice Long's living room. They hold years of Belville's history, mingled with that of her own family.

Long, 67, lives in the same Belville home she grew up in. Her father, the late John D. Long, was the town's first mayor, and she was the first town clerk.

The now 30-year-old town incorporated so it could have a liquor store, she said.

"Daddy's vision was to make this a pretty little spot by the side of the road," Long said. "Revenue from the liquor store was supposed to do that. But to this day, we haven't seen that. It's not pretty yet."

But now the town's plans to turn its dilapidated downtown into a riverside haven for shopping, entertainment and condo living seem more realistic than ever before.

The town staff is working on a master plan and seeking money for infrastructure. Developers are buying up property to clear space for the project.

At some point, structures besides the several that have already come down will be demolished.

That includes Long's house on Old River Road.

"I want to see it happen," Long said of the downtown project. "It will be a bittersweet day when they tear my house down."

Leap of faith

Several months ago, the downtown project developers offered Long a deal: some cash, a temporary home and then a condo of her choice in the new downtown, once it gets completed. If the project falls through, she will be moved elsewhere, her contract says.

In return, she would give up her house.

She won't have to spend a dime but also doesn't know where or when they'll be moving her out. She doesn't know whether the temporary place will have enough room for her decades worth of pictures and other belongings.

Long took the deal anyway and bought herself a van with the money.

"It was a difficult decision," said Long, who has lived alone since her sons moved out and her parents died. "My roots go very deep in this piece of land. But it's for the betterment of this community, and my betterment. I can no longer take care of this house properly."

Long's deal is unique, said Lance Robbins, a principal with Urban Smart Growth, the California-based company investing in the downtown project. It took into account that Long's father had been mayor and she wanted to continue living in town, he said.

She will participate in determining where the company will move her after it takes over her house, Robbins said. The closing date on the property is in March, but Robbins said it could be a few years until she has to leave.

Robbins said it's optimistic to think construction will begin in two or three years.

"We're really starting with nothing," he said.

Long haul for overhaul

All that's left of downtown Belville now, after it has decayed over the years and undergone some demolitions, are a few shops and churches. Also, the town lacks the infrastructure to support major development, said Michael White, Robbins' local partner. It needs more water and sewer lines, he said, something it will have to coordinate with its provider, the North Brunswick Sanitary District.

But Urban Smart Growth's niche is precisely revamping old urban neighborhoods, Robbins said, and although it can be difficult, there "are a lot of funds being invested in this sort of project."

The company currently has about 100 acres of property in production across the country, Robbins said.

At about 70 acres - half of it estimated to be buildable, half of it wetlands - Belville's central business district will be the company's biggest project to date, he said.

The project will cost more than $100 million, Robbins said, but he expects it to yield large profits in the end. Downtown Belville is very attractive because of its proximity to the water and access to major thoroughfares, the developer said.

Before now, however, no one had "the courage to assemble and deal with it," he said.

"A lot of people were trying to come into Belville and buy individual pieces to redevelop," said White, owner of the local company Five Points Development. "What it took was somebody to make the commitment and buy more than one property."

So far, the developers have closed on Main Street's Old Cookery and an old motel, both of which have been demolished, as well as on a series of properties on Blackwell Road, Robbins said. Other properties are in various stages of contracts and negotiations, he said.

Authorities impounded the other motel that has been torn down, Town & Country, after the owner was arrested, White said. But the developers still hope to buy it one day; in fact, they're working on purchasing most of the properties that remain, including a state-owned bridge maintenance facility on the Brunswick River, he said.

Lofty plans made real

Robbins believes he arrived in Belville at just the right time, when a new town administration was in place.

"They were very encouraging," he said. "If they had not shown interest, we would've walked out the door."

White and Robbins joined in the town's charrette, a series of planning workshops, in February and took notes on what the town intends its downtown to be. With homes, stores, restaurants and a riverwalk, it could come to resemble downtown Wilmington, only smaller and more meticulously planned.

The plans look good on paper. Now the town must discuss them in practical terms, Town Administrator Tracie Davis said.

"The charrette is an outside-of-the-box process, without looking at rules and regulations," Davis said.

Davis has been meeting with the planning board to go over the design and recommendations by the Lawrence Group, the town's consultants, and see how feasible they are as far as money, traffic and environment go.

It has not been such a smooth task so far.

At a meeting last month, planning board members spent a substantial amount of time discussing aspects of the design they could not agree on, then tabling them for when they'd have more details. Davis was frustrated then, but showed optimism later, saying the next meeting went better.

The Lawrence Group should be able to come back next month with revised recommendations for the Board of Commissioners to approve, Davis said.

"This is a very difficult, time-consuming process to go through," she said. "But it's doable. It's so doable."

Davis said the town is doing all it can to avoid extending the current moratorium that has halted development in Belville's Lincoln Industrial Park, its main downtown area and the business corridor along U.S. 17, all slated for new construction and improvements under Belville's conceptual plan.

Much of that plan counts on cooperation from other entities.

It depends on the N.C. Department of Transportation for a lot of the road improvements it seeks; on Leland for the Chappell Loop Road area Belville would like to annex from the town for further industrial development; and on developers to fund most of the buildings and part of the infrastructure.

After all, Belville doesn't have much money. It had to let go of a code enforcement officer to hire a planning director, which upset some residents.

They have complained that the town, which doesn't have its own police department yet, does not offer them enough services.

Davis contends the town is carrying out good planning, a service that's somewhat abstract. "People don't see the value in it until years later," she said.

As for affording infrastructure, Davis said she will be looking first for grants and then loans. Raising taxes would be the last resort, she said. But before the search for funds begins, the town needs to do a study on how much money it will actually need, Davis said.

A new water view

As Belville prepares the ground for new construction, the noticeable change lies in what's no longer there.

"The fact these things are being torn down is a good indication" that the project will take off, Long said.

Before the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge opened in 1969, people would stop by downtown Belville on their way to Wilmington. Long, who now works at the Wal-Mart in Leland, remembers her town's business district once having three motels, several gas stations, a large towel store, a cafe and the Old Cookery.

Business died after the new four-lane highway bypassed Belville. Drugs and prostitution came into the gray-looking downtown.

From the old motel property White purchased, he took out septic tanks he described as "almost completely filled with hypodermic needles and crack pipes."

Long said a prostitute once approached her son outside the nearby Scotchman store.

"I was kind of ashamed of telling people where I lived because they had to go through that junk," Long said.

But the demolitions have driven those illegal activities away, as far as Long knows. She wants progress to come to her hometown and hopes she'll be around to see the new downtown condo she has been promised.

One of the selling points in the developers' deal with her was a view of the river, Long said, adding that the condo might be built where her house now stands.

"I've always had a view of the river," Long said. "I'll just have a better view from high up, I guess. 'Cause I want top floor. And I hope they have an elevator."