A new development at Durham’s Northgate Mall is on the way. Why aren’t neighbors happy?

It took less than 10 minutes for the meeting in a vacant storefront inside Durham’s first mall to get totally out of control.

The developers were sharing their plan for the defunct Northgate Mall — a life sciences office complex — that lacked the key thing neighbors had asked for: affordable housing.

Tensions quickly boiled over.

More than 100 people filled the room, a fluorescent-lit, former clothing store empty except for a few padded benches and several rows of folding chairs. Dozens were forced to stand.

After a brief introduction, Northwood Retail’s development team tried to steer the crowd into smaller groups to handle questions individually. They had propped renderings on easels spread around the store and encouraged folks to have a look.

But the crowd revolted, shouting questions as the project team — two lawyers, two Northwood employees and a planner — tried to regain control of the room.

“We know that there’s a lot of questions, and we know that this is near and dear to all of you. This is near and dear to us. We’ve invested a lot of time and money into this,” said Jonathan Stewart, Northwood’s vice president of leasing, prompting bitter laughs.

Valita Holmes, a 55-year resident of West Club Boulevard, finally stood up and persuaded them to take questions from the group.

“All these folks in here, we have questions and concerns for our neighborhood. Y’all don’t live here. We do,” Holmes said. “Right now, all of us have questions, and I think it’s kind of unfair for you all to kind of dismiss us like that.”

What’s the plan for Northgate Mall?

Northwood told residents last summer they could no longer commit to the pedestrian-friendly mix of retail, office and residential proposed in 2018.

In the new plans for the 55-acre property shared Thursday night, the mall would largely remain standing, though the former Sears Auto Center would come down, along with the parts of the mall connected to the former Macy’s department store.

Most of the real estate will house offices and labs in the life sciences industry. The developers claim to be able to support 2,000 jobs.

There would be a one-acre park on the western edge of the mall, lined with restaurants and shops. The remainder would be surface parking and tree-lined sidewalks.

“We really feel strongly the park should be the heartbeat of the project and be in the center of the retail district,” said Sandy Spurgin, Northwood’s head of development and retail.

The shops off Guess Road that today house Planet Fitness and a handful of other tenants would be renovated and left as retail.

Duke University owns the Macy’s wing. It paid $4.5 million for the former department store in 2017 with the intention to transform it into office space and medical clinics.

Residents were skeptical of the vision and asked for something more like North Hills in Raleigh or The Streets at Southpoint mall.

“Doesn’t Durham deserve something really vibrant and exciting and great?” asked Sherri Zann Rosenthal. “I really wish you would rethink it so that we would get more housing for all incomes, so that we would really have something that feels like a living world, and that it would really get away from this last century model and stuff looking like a leftover mall that’s been repurposed. And I think that we would all be so excited by that.”

Pressing for affordable housing

As the questions rolled in, many tried to pry concessions around housing from the developers.

“It’s one of the greatest tragedies in America: the rich are getting richer and the poor are becoming poorer,” said Robert Daniels, who pastors a church in Walltown. “It will be a sad commentary if you overlook the need for affordable housing.”

Brandon Williams chairs the Walltown Community Association committee working on Northgate’s redevelopment.

The association has engaged hundreds of residents since 2018 to craft their own vision for the site, calling for affordable housing, a grocery store, community space, green space connecting to Walltown Park across Guess Road, and better stormwater infrastructure to address flooding along Ellerbe Creek, which runs under the parking lot.

“None of the amenities make a difference if working class people can’t live on or near the site,” Williams said in an interview Thursday night. “The minute the construction starts, the speculation goes up in Walltown. We’ve felt it already.”

Walltown was one of four areas where the city offered property tax relief after property values shot up following the 2015 assessment.

“Folks are going to get pushed out. Landlords are going to raise rent, and property taxes will go up for people on fixed incomes,” said Williams, who had a number of tense exchanges with Nil Ghosh, an attorney for the developers, during the meeting.

Northwood said it’s exploring the possibility of adding a residential component on one acre. They couldn’t build more than 16 townhomes there, and even that would require a rezoning, Stewart said. The team has maintained that putting housing on the site doesn’t make “economic sense.”

The firm bought the mall for $34.5 million in 2018 after moving to foreclose on it earlier the same year. It had been bleeding tenants for years and finally shuttered in May 2020.

“If it doesn’t cover debt service and you can’t pay your loan, all it does is go back to the bank and go back to the purgatory,” Stewart said over groans. “So that’s what I mean when I say it doesn’t make economic sense.”

Williams proposed they give about 11 acres to the city for a 240-unit affordable housing development in exchange for an expedited rezoning and permitting. Attorneys said they’re evaluating the proposal, shared earlier this week.

“I think this is an incredible opportunity for Durham and Walltown to build something that is a generational investment,” said Marcus Southern, part of the Walltown Community Association.

City Council must approve project

The mall has been on Club Boulevard just south of Interstate 85 since 1960.

Jo Ann Lutz moved to the neighborhood in 1970 and saw the mall shift before her eyes. When she arrived, there was a tiny strip with a Roses and handful of other shops. Lutz remembers watching Disney film “The Aristocats” in Northgate’s original movie theater when it debuted over the Christmas holiday in 1970.

They kept adding over the decades, building Sears and Thalhimers department stores and in 1974, enclosing the mall. Lutz paid $300 for a piano she no longer has. For many years, there was a grocery store in the strip along Guess Road, though it closed in the early 2000s.

“It used to be the main mall. Then we had South Square (opened in 1975) and when Southpoint came around (in 2002), everything else died out,” she said.

But a lot of the neighborhood surrounding Northgate looks the same, Lutz said.

“In some ways, it hasn’t changed that much. We still have a lot of the small houses, but little by little ...” she said and raised her eyebrows.

Northwood will need a rezoning, from the current “commercial center” designation to the “commercial general” category for the redevelopment, meaning the City Council decides whether the project proceeds. Three council members — DeDreana Freeman, Javiera Caballero and Leonardo Williams — attended Thursday night.

The developers want to have the property rezoned by the end of 2023 so construction can start in mid-2024.

“We’d like to move as quickly as we can,” Spurgin said, adding they have no contingency plan should their plans be rejected.

The meeting ended with a promise that the developers were listening to the feedback and a handful of ragged claps.

“I promise you, we’re hearing you on this stuff, and we’ll do our best to deliver a project that meets your desires,” Spurgin said.