The white-haired, blue-eyed man drinking decaf coffee at Folks Cafe in downtown Wilmington explained one of his greatest hopes for the future in his typically blunt manner.

“I would love to be able to take a train to Raleigh instead of having to drive on that damn I-40,” said Gene Merritt, a longtime Wilmington resident who is working to bring back passenger rail to the Port City.

As he talked about his life and work on a sunny Wednesday morning, the 80-year-old backtracked on his use of the word “damn.”

“I-40 is a great thing. I-40 was a game-changer,” said Merritt, who led efforts in the 1980s to extend I-40 to Wilmington.
It’s just that close to Raleigh,the traffic can “get ridiculous,” he said.

Plus, as Merritt has been explaining to officials and groups around the state, he feels the restored passenger service “would be a benefit socially and economically for the small towns along the route.”

Merritt has been and done many things in his life, and he’s comfortable talking about it, the successes and the failures. A commercial real estate broker, appraiser and developer, he is also a self-described “sucker for the public good.”

Last year, Merritt and fellow Wilmington entrepreneur Steve Unger formed Eastern Carolina Rail to help re-establish passenger rail from Wimington to Raleigh.

The project has some financial backing from the federal government. A proposed route that would follow the N.C. Railroad Company lines, running between Raleigh and Goldsboro then continuing to Wilmington, received a $500,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation in December 2023.

Merritt said one of his next moves for Eastern Carolina Rail is to present the Raleigh-Wilmington line to a national organization, Rail Users Network, this month.

While continuing to lobby for passenger rail, Merritt remains an advocate for one of his greatest loves: downtown Wilmington.

“I do not know what downtown Wilmington would be without the influence of the Merritts, Gene in particular,” said Susi Hamilton, a former state representative for New Hanover and Brunswick counties.

She considers Gene Merritt a mentor.

“Gene is probably one of the more creative thinkers I’ve ever known, and he started out at a young age, creating new things,” she said.

Nearly 50 years ago, Merritt signed the incorporation papers for the Downtown Area Revitalization Effort, the precursor to today’s downtown Wilmington economic development agency, Wilmington Downtown Inc. He served as executive director, and in the 1980s, Merritt helped get strip clubs and adult bookstores out of the central business district.

In 1982, he led the push to keep a company from building a coal depot downtown by using a state statute to force a public vote.

By Merritt’s count, he was involved either directly or indirectly in more than 125 real estate development projects, “many of them involving the preservation and/or adaptive use of historic properties,” he writes on his website, www.genemerritt.com.

Born in Rose Hill, Merritt’s family moved to Wilmington when he was 5. The son of Eugene Worth Merritt and Rosa Player Farrior Merritt, he was the second of four children.

Gene Merritt had a meandering career path after graduating from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. After working in New Orleans, he returned to Wilmington and joined his family’s company, Merritt-Holland Gas Co., as general manager. That didn’t work out because of family dynamics, although he and his father worked together years later on community efforts.

Along his career path, he was also executive director of the United Arts Council of Greensboro Inc., served as director of advertising and public relations for the N.C. State Ports Authority and worked as special assistant to the North Carolina Secretary of Cultural Resources.

After leading DARE Inc., he started his own commercial real estate firm in 1982. His most recent real estate development was the multi-tenant commercial structure at 200 Market St., built in 2018.

While Merritt wants people to know about what he’s accomplished, describing his life and historic preservation efforts and interests in detail on his website and blog, he also doesn’t mind sharing his struggles.

For example, he had a successful career in real estate for many years before the Great Recession struck.

“I was killing it for a while, making a lot of money, doing quite well,” Merritt said. “And 2008 destroyed it.”

It destroyed his self-esteem, too.

Mentally and physically, he said, “I don’t think I’ve ever fully recovered from it, but I’ve learned to adjust to the reality of the situation.”

Still, he went on to more accomplishments, serving as a downtown revitalization consultant for the city of Whiteville from 2015 to 2018. These days, in addition to championing efforts such as passenger rail, he sticks to a routine, meeting a group of friends at Folks Cafe each weekday morning, walking Independence Mall twice a day and riding his electric bicycle. And he enjoys reflecting on his work and life.

“If I died today, I would feel like I’ve made a good contribution to society and have had a good life. Are there things I would have done differently? Yes, like everyone else in the world. Have I made mistakes? Yes. Have I made bad judgments? Yes. Have I been successful? Yes,” Merritt said. “So bottom line, I think I get a plus instead of a negative.”