At a recent gathering in down town Wilmington, Mayor Bill Saffo recalled earlier days of the city’s Central Business District along the Cape Fear River, when Belk-Beery and other department stores and businesses made the Port City’s downtown a vibrant place to visit and shop.

“Saffo’s Restaurant too,” the mayor quipped to laughter from the audience at the Wilmington Downtown Inc. Fall Economic Series session, “Downtown’s Six-Pack of Projects,” held Oct. 13 at the Coastline Conference and Event Center.

“It was just a great place to come to day in and day out,” the mayor said.

In the late 1960s and early ’70s, people and businesses started moving away from downtown to the suburbs, and some buildings were torn down. But eventually, new efforts began to turn the tide.

It started with the private sector and citizens first. Then the public sector started really getting into it, started making the investments necessary to turn downtown around,” Saffo said.

After the mayor’s remarks, some of the owners and business professionals involved in six high-profile projects shared insights about how their efforts are transforming the downtown landscape.

Convention Center Hotel

Brooks Johnson, director of development for Harmony Hospitality, said crews working on the convention center hotel his company is building, a nine-story, 186-room Embassy Suites that will be connected to the Wilmington Convention Center, have run into some challenges.

As a result, the cost has increased from earlier estimates of $34 million-$36 million to $40 million, Johnson said.

One example of those challenges is the irregularly shaped site itself, where the hotel will be taking up nearly 98 percent of the property.

“It’s a tremendously tight spot, more than you can imagine,” he said.

But despite the hurdles, construction is well underway, and “it’s going to be quite incredible, we think,” Johnson said, pointing out features such as a pool, ballroom and rooftop bar that the highly anticipated hotel will include.

Johnson said construction on the hotel is expected to be wrapped up by “this time next year.”

Infill Development

Plantation Building Corp. President Dave Spetrino, who has built condos, townhomes and single-family homes in downtown Wilmington over several years, talked about why focusing in on downtown properties is a topic of particular interest to him.

“What I like to do when I’m not building houses for people is I have this passion called infill development, and God forbid a politician or a planner gets in front of me – all I’m going to talk about is infill development,” Spetrino said.

It’s not always profitable, but one of the reasons it’s important, Septrino said, is something elected officials already know.

“They know that taxes either have to increase … or they’re going to have to increase the tax base,” he said.

He used the example of one of his company’s past projects, the New York Hatter building at 105 Grace St., as a place that had previously just been a gravel parking lot.

That site generated $650 a year in taxes in 2007 and today produces about $23,500, Spetrino said after the event.
Townhomes on Brunswick and North Fourth streets were also among examples of work Spetrino’s company has done.

He’s been analyzing a 50-acre portion of the downtown area as a place with potential opportunities for more single-family home infill development, such as a home at 424 Campbell St.

In 20 city blocks within that area bordered by Fourth, Eighth, Brunswick and Bladen streets, Spetrino has found that 25 percent of the land is vacant.

“As a whole, what we’re going to start seeing near downtown is a movement toward people going, ‘Look, I’m OK to rent, but really I want to own’… and so what we have done and what we hope others will do … is to take a look at some of these areas just outside the Central Business District,” Spetrino said.

More owner-occupied homes could help lead to more stabilized neighborhoods there, he said.

Pythian Building

Beth Pancoe, head of SDI Construction, is working to restore the historic Pythian Building at 206-208 Princess St. for retail space and an events center.

She said retail space in the building will be the new home of Tusc Boutique, currently at 21 N. Front St., and the third floor will be home to 208 Princess Events, an events venue for weddings and other occasions. The second floor will hold dressing rooms for the bride and groom.

The Knights of Pythias, a fraternal order, built the structure in 1915.

“Dr. Tim Winslow decided to buy this building to rehab it and to give it back to Wilmington, which I thought was very commendable of him – a lot of work goes into this. He now has federal and state tax credits in order to fund this,” Pancoe said.

Farmin' On Front

Molly Crawford, Farmin’s stores director, and Randall Heath, sales and marketing director for Farmin’, talked about Farmin’ on Front, an urban food market in the works at 143 N. Front St., announcing that the grand opening of the store is expected in the coming weeks.

“We’re less than four weeks out,” Crawford said to applause.

Expo 216

Linda Look, Wade Hughes and architect Clark Hipp worked on the transformation of 216 N. Front St. into Expo 216, a specialty museum with a residence on the top floor.

“They’ve given something back to Wilmington, and I believe that we’re going to see more of this downtown as more of these buildings get revitalized,” Hipp said, referring to Look and Hughes, who own the building.

North Waterfront Park

Amy Beatty, Wilmington’s director of community service and recreation superintendent, talked about plans for North Waterfront Park.

Fifteen projects are proposed in a $30.4 million parks bond on the ballot Nov. 8, with much of the money going toward development of the new waterfront park. If approved, the bond would be repaid by increasing the city’s property tax rate by 2.1 cents per $100 of a property’s value, meaning an owner with property valued at $200,000, for example, would pay $42 more a year in taxes.

Under the proposal, 6.6 acres along the Cape Fear River would be turned into a public park with a concert venue among other amenities.