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Comments
Submitted by RWE (not verified) on Tue, 8/25/2009 - 10:29pm
I think Ninth Street is looking very tired these days. This could be a great public street, but few of the buildings are well maintained, and many of the storefronts look tired or dated.
Some of the buildings are in really bad shape, especially the two story structure at the SE corner of Ninth and Markham (same owner as 728 Ninth). The street seems even grimmer now that George's is vacant and their parking lot is chained off.
I think the owners of many of these buildings have been able to sit back and collect high rents because this was the only "cool" retail area in Durham for a long time. Now there are lots of other options, and I would not be at all surprised to see some of the established retail tenants start jumping to downtown, West Village, Golden Leaf, or the DAP area, for example.
Submitted by Toby (not verified) on Wed, 8/26/2009 - 1:40am
RWE is right -- Ninth Street does look a bit down-at-the-heels right now. But a lot of the problems are superficial, and could be fixed with some very basic maintenance: scrape, caulk, and paint.
Also, I think the business owners on the street should pitch in together to hire a contractor to come in and steam-clean the sidewalks and gutters -- they're filthy!
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