Happy Juneteenth, Uptown!

Today is the day that slaves in Texas learned they were free men and women back in 1865. While the actual date of the Emancipation Proclamation was effective January 1, 1863, it took almost 6 months for the news to reach Texas so folks in Texas started celebrating the Emancipation on June 19th.  Now 41 states including North Carolina recognize Juneteenth and people in the other 9 celebrate as well. So if you're wondering why the fireworks around the Uptown for the last few days-- now you know.

New Motorcycle Shop Comes To East Greensboro? Or Not?

It's not quite in the Uptown but this week the Greensboro Zoning Commission approved the rezoning of 112 Aunt Mary Ave to become a motorcycle shop, garage or boat repair shop.

A property at 1080 Gatewood Avenue was approved PUD (Planned Unit Development) so that a cell phone tower can be constructed there. Sadly, I don't think there are plans to locate the tower on top of a building. The tower is to be built by Pinnacle Towers Inc  of Sarasota, Florida.

99 Blocks Closes Its Doors

The online publication, 99 Blocks recently announced their closing after 5 years in business in Downtown Greensboro. Despite what some think, online publishing is rarely profitable and I'll be surprised if Uptown Greensboro News & Reviews manages to hang on so long.

That said, we are following a slightly different model with lower overhead and a larger physical market so we're hoping for the best. We hope Bill Hancock goes on to do great things.

Interesting Notes From The Tabb Study

The Tabb Study, aka, A Strategic Plan for East Greensboro raises a lot of interesting questions and a lot of facts the residents of west Greensboro most likely don't know or don't understand. Today I'm pointing those things out along with more than a few comments of my own.

...the residents of East Greensboro spend a disproportionate portion of their income."

The cost of feeding a well-to-do family is no higher than the cost to feed a poor family but when the poor are forced to buy from higher priced convenience stores-- many owned by the same few people-- or travel across town, then the cost to feed a poor family becomes higher than the cost of feeding better-off families.

Then there's the failure to take into account residents in Eastern Guilford County-- most more affluent than East Greensboro residents-- who travel outside of Guilford County to buy groceries and shop because other cities are closer than West Greensboro shopping centers. How many millions are being lost annually to other counties?

And might I remind more affluent Downtown residents who recently lobbied the City of Greensboro to help bring Deep Roots to Downtown that most East Greensboro residents live even farther away from grocery stores than Downtown residents.

"East Greensboro has experienced a considerably sharper economic decline than any other part of the City."

Remember: with economic decline comes increased crime and as crime increases on the east side it starts to spill over into more affluent areas of the city. Already, Downtown has a higher crime rate than most of the city including most of East Greensboro.

"The highest population density
Largest decrease in home ownership
Lowest residential rental rates"

For those of you West Greensboro residents who have long profited from the rental homes you own in East Greensboro, what does that say about the future of your business model? If I were you I'd be selling my East Greensboro properties. Only problem is: no one is buying in East Greensboro. Not even the slum lords. In one .03 of a mile radius in my East Greensboro neighborhood alone there are currently 40 empty single family homes plus apartments.

"11 of 16 public schools are in the process of working to improve their overall performance"

The same was true in the 1960s and early 70s when I was a student in East Greensboro. When I applied for college with my honor roll high school diploma in hand, I was told I would have to repeat high school before I could be accepted, as my East Greensboro High School was so poorly rated. And so it is, as school performance suffers the problems that plague East Greensboro grow and continue to spill over into the west. Is that something West Greensboro is prepared to face? And if so-- how?

On the office market:

"Vacancy rates, however, have grown steadily each of the past 10 quarters and remain above 14.5%. Given the size of the office market, this high vacancy translates into approximately 500,000 square feet of unoccupied space in the market, or 35 buildings based upon the market’s average building size of 14,660 square feet."

I can't help but wonder what that will do to office rental rates city wide.

On the industrial market:

"The Industrial market in Greensboro has experienced a steady and relatively large (10%) decrease in quoted rental rates since 2007. "

About those planned water and sewer extensions along the eastern and western county lines...

On the residential housing market:

"Avg Listing Price $236,776 Avg Sale Price $122,000"

That figure is city wide, people. You do the math. For some of you that means the value of your home may well be half of what you thought it was. If that's not enough motivation for you to seriously consider doing something about East Greensboro then you're probably beyond intellectual reach.

"One of the most difficult challenges the area faces is the large inventory of low and extremely low income housing. These communities of older housing stock have below market rents and offer a mixture of quality levels ranging from the poorly-kept, unsafe renter housing to high quality, market leading Hope VI communities. In order to see new multi-family housing successfully developed by market rate developers, pricing must increase and housing quality levels must improve across the entire Study Area."

Again, we're not talking about the value of my East Greensboro home-- it's already tanked lower than it was 20 years ago-- we're talking about retaining value in your west Greensboro home as the economic problems continue to spill over.

The eastern half of the City of Greensboro has a total of 8 shopping centers. Overall, Greensboro has 93 shopping centers.

"Only Wendover, Lawndale and Green Valley have higher actual sales than East Greensboro."

And to think, you're spending a fortune to keep your business in Downtown Greensboro...

"Transportation is a very interesting, yet well known issue for East Greensboro. While the area has good local road access, and should be the centerpiece of several attractive entrances into Greensboro, its connectivity through interstates and major roads is perhaps the worst in the City and effectively cuts off access to the entire eastern and northern part of the Greensboro."

Okay, here's where the study authors start to show their true colors. Up until now everything they've written is established fact but if anyone is hoping to use the study as an excuse to build bypasses around East Greensboro then you can bet they'll start quoting the line above. Well here's a little secret: you can travel twice as far in East Greensboro in half the time that it requires to navigate west Greensboro even though the population density of East Greensboro is higher than the west side.

"Ultimately, the goal is to see household incomes in the area grow to the point that there begins to be an increase in the projected Consumer Expenditures."

Hard to argue with that.

"New traffic patterns on the Murrow Boulevard edge of E. Market and Friendly Streets culminating in a new signature architectural roundabout and greenspace at the current site of the Exxon gas station. This traffic corridor needs to be upgraded to improve traffic flow in and out of Downtown. The current configuration has two one way streets that converge between S. Dudley St. and Murrow Blvd. This bottleneck creates a difficult island of retail/office and accentuates the divide created by Murrow Blvd between Downtown and the universities. By modifying this traffic pattern and creating a signature gateway into Downtown, we hope to bring life to both Downtown and the universities."

As I wrote before, "The study is pointing to a portion of East Market and East Friendly where the cement used in the most recent redesign of the "gateway" has hardly had time to dry." Seriously, you can see the hand of Mayor "Pave-it" Perkins and Jim "Bobblehead" Melvin all over this study.

"A new select service or boutique hotel on the current bus depot site and incorporated into the surrounding adaptive reuse projects located off of Murrow Blvd, along the Downtown side of E. Market Street. Our research with RLJ Lodging Trust indicated that Downtown is underserved by hotels, with the select service and boutique classes almost non-existent in the entire City. This planned redevelopment site is ideally located to take advantage of the Downtown CBD, the S. Elm Street retail and the proximity to the universities and proposed retail and performing arts venue."

As I also wrote before, "I was under the impression this study was about East Greensboro but the study is discussing areas (the Depot) that are clearly a part of Downtown Greensboro. I think we may now know the sudden interest in a part of the city that has been systematicly destroyed for the last 50 years. Remember: East Greensboro used to have all these things even before it was a part of the city." That's right, for those of you who might not know, East Greensboro had Greensboro's first fast food restaurants and big box retailers before the area was incorporated.

"A new mixed use retail and destination venue located on the site of the former post office, now controlled by the United House of Prayer would allow the area to receive much needed quality retail, while introducing a destination use that would be beneficial to the schools, the Church and the City. Today, only the Aycock Auditorium, Greensboro Coliseum Complex and Harrison Auditorium serve the assembly needs of the E. Market area. We recommend a joint study with the UHOP, the city, and the universities to identify an appropriate destination use that supports all of the major stakeholders."

Again, like I said before, "Actually, there are several privately owned venues in East Greensboro that are capable of meeting assembly needs and currently exist to offer such services-- two are located on East Wendover Ave. There are also multiple empty commercial buildings in the immediate area that could be retrofitted to meet such needs." For them the issue isn't East Greensboro but expansion of Downtown Greensboro.

"Facilitate an expansion of North East Plaza through the assemblage of adjacent property to add an additional anchor tenant.

2. Inquire as to the long term viability of Bob Dunn Hyundai, and a possible relocation West to the adjacent land between Bill Black Chevrolet.

3. Redevelop Bob Dunn Hyundai for a possible “Club” retailer such as Sams, BJ Wholesale, or Costco."

Me again, "There are literally thousands of acres available in East Greensboro for big box retailers that would not require the relocation of East Greensboro's only new car dealerships, Bob Dunn Hyundai and Bill Black Cadillac-Chevrolet." But if Bobby Dunn and Bill Black Jr. would like to relocate their businesses to another East Greensboro location then I'm all for using tax incentives to make it happen for them as both are second generation businesses with huge potentials for growth and long records of serving East Greensboro. To loose either to the west side of the city would be devastating to East Greensboro.

Like I wrote before, the hand of Greensboro's development crowd is written all over this study but facts are facts and dealing with these facts are 50 years overdue. All of Greensboro should be talking about redeveloping East Greensboro not from a developer's point of view but from the point of view that as homeowners you want to see your own investments to remain protected and your children's lives better than your own.

East Greensboro doesn't need 85 or so new shopping centers to bring us up to parity with the 85 shopping centers located in west Greensboro but the 8 somewhat empty shopping centers we have isn't enough. Smart business leaders should be looking hard at East Greensboro locations for their own businesses be it through locating your businesses in the hundreds of empty shops that already exist (the preferred way) or building new locations. And remember: every time a property goes empty in the east, the tax burden increases for the entire city.

East Greensboro doesn't need an urban loop-- that's for folks from out of town who don't plan to shop in East Greensboro. Nor do we need development along the east and west county lines as the writers of the A Strategic Plan for East Greensboro would have us believe. The residents of East Greensboro are the least likely to own cars-- we need jobs in East Greensboro. The development crowd will use this study to support the very same kinds of activities they've done for the last 50 years-- the very activities that destroyed East Greensboro in the first place.

Recognize the development crowd will use this study to spend millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars to fatten their own wallets. Don't let them. Things like a downtown performing arts center as recommended by the study authors were put there to appease the development crowd but jobs Downtown and along the county lines will be of little benefit to my neighborhood here in East Greensboro or the rest of Greensboro. But understand that if the rest of Greensboro doesn't soon step up to help the community that built this entire city... Well, don't come crying to me when East Greensboro's problems come back to bite your Downtown and west Greensboro butts.

If you'd like to read the study for yourself: Parts 1 and 2.

Comments are welcome and will be published. E-mail your comments to uptowngsonews@gmail.com with the words, "Interesting Notes From The Tabb Study" in the subject line of your e-mail.

The Tabb Study, Part 3

In Part 1, I gave readers the Executive Summary of the Tabb Report. Part 2 was Market Overviews. Today we continue with a Discussion of Parity:

The eastern half of the City of Greensboro has a total of 8 shopping centers. Overall, Greensboro has 93 shopping centers.

"V Discussion of Parity

The Economic Overview of the City highlighted the economic and educational deficiencies of East Greensboro.

• Lowest projected population growth (1.6%)
• Highest poverty rates
• Median HH Incomes of $21,617 versus $42,927
• Largest decrease in home ownership
• Lowest residential rental rates
• 11 of 16 public schools are in the process of working to improve their overall performance

These are conditions that cannot be ignored and in many ways set the foundation for the concerns regarding parity.

Three key metrics for increasing the presence of retail and other service amenities in a trade area are 1) household median income levels, 2) the number of households and 3) the level of daytime population. With the exception of daytime population levels, East Greensboro ranks low in the metrics when compared to the other trade areas. Daytime population for the overall East Greensboro study area (28,671) is greater than any trade area except Lawndale (42,545) and East Market Street, which is in the study area. The East Lee Street trade area’s daytime population (57,175) is the highest in the entire city. The number of households and household incomes are the greatest hindrance to East Greensboro’s attractiveness to retailers. The study area has the lowest number of households and the lowest median household income.

What drives these low household numbers is the key to identifying the solutions. In order to increase the presence of services and retail, the number of households must increase and the income levels within those households must increase. This means a focus on jobs, schools and the quality of housing stock. Household median income projections are a very important part in determining consumer expenditure projections.Essentially, researchers work off the idea that people spend a set percentage of their income on retail purchases; therefore, the higher your median income level, the higher the consumer demand is projected to be.

A review of the demand projections for Greensboro shows that only E. Lee and Burlington have lower projected consumer demands than E. Market, and all three are in the East Greensboro study area. On the other side of this issue is expenditures. Only Wendover, Lawndale and Green Valley have higher actual sales than East Greensboro. Lowest demand, yet highest sales? This is a contradiction that would often be explained by the presence of high levels of quality retailers that are the beneficiary of other area’s retail expenditures (the recipient of leakage). Clearly this is not the case in East Greensboro. So why does this contradiction exist?

Three reasons:

1. The residents of East Greensboro spend much more money in their community than researchers believe. They actually could spend a disproportionate portion of their income than their counterparts do in other trade areas. The reality is many expenditures are often fixed costs, and cannot be valued down due to a lack of income. Examples are gas, basic clothing and food.

2. The research is simply wrong. Lower income areas spend more than researchers believe. There are many more residents in the trade area than researchers account for. This can include undocumented renters and service related income generated, but not reported, such as tips, side work, child care, etc...

3. Transportation from the study area to other trade areas is very difficult, meaning more dollars stay in the trade area due to the resident’s inability to exit the trade area.

Transportation is a very interesting, yet well known issue for East Greensboro. While the area has good local road access, and should be the centerpiece of several attractive entrances into Greensboro, its connectivity through interstates and major roads is perhaps the worst in the City and effectively cuts off access to the entire eastern and northern part of the Greensboro. E. Cone’s ability to connect to E. Florida (through Nealtown and Ward) and I - 840’s ability to connect from the southeast are both needed to improve access from and to the east and make the east an attractive retail environment. Without adequate access, the east will never be considered a destination area."

As you can clearly see, things are very much out of balance. And while many claim crime and poverty are the major reason as to why East Greensboro lacks shopping, the study shows otherwise. Could it be that a lack of interest in East Greensboro has pushed crime rates higher?

In Part 4 I'll present the study recommendations.

Tabb Study, Part 2

Previously I gave you the Executive Summary of the Tabb Report. We now move on to market overviews as presented by Mike Neal of Colliers International and Michael Tabb of Red Rock Global Real Estate Services Company.

I added emphasis in bold text to a few important lines in the study.

"Economic Market Overview

According to the 2011 State of the City report prepared for the Greensboro partnership in January 2011, “Greensboro appears to have weathered the fiscal storm more effectively than other North Carolina cities.” Although the City continues to lose manufacturing jobs as the City’s industrial base declines, research, education, transportation and health care remain strong employers with positive job growth and wage increase. Overall wages experienced a slight increase (2.4%) and the population grew for both the City (14.4%) and the East Greensboro study area (4.6%).

While most of the economic indicators point to Greensboro’s ability to manage through the Country’s economic crisis, three areas remain critical areas of focus: 1) the City’s increased poverty rate, 2) the decline in home values and the growing shift from home ownership to rental, and finally 3) the continued effort to improve the performance of the Greensboro’s public schools. Nowhere in the City are these three areas more important than in East Greensboro. East Greensboro has experienced a considerably sharper economic decline than any other part of the City.

• The highest population density
• Lowest projected population growth (1.6%)
• Highest poverty rates
• Median HH Incomes of $21,617 versus $42,927
• Largest decrease in home ownership
• Lowest residential rental rates
• 11 of 16 public schools are in the process of working to improve their overall performance

Real Estate Market Overview

As a general statement, Greensboro is over supplied across all sectors of the real estate market. Office, industrial, retail and residential are seeing limited new inventory being introduced while vacancies remain above their historic average high. Nevertheless, rents remain stable, and in the case of office, are increasing slightly.

Office Market Overview

The Guildford County office market has managed to keep a very consistent quoted office rate in the mid to low $14 range. Since 4th quarter 2010, rents have increased to levels approaching their 2008/2009 peak. Vacancy rates, however, have grown steadily each of the past 10 quarters and remain above 14.5%. Given the size of the office market, this high vacancy translates into approximately 500,000 square feet of unoccupied space in the market, or 35 buildings based upon the market’s average building size of 14,660 square feet. Although office rates appear to be improving, the high vacancy rates will continue to hold back new construction. The Study Area does not include a significant Class A office inventory. Most office space within the Study Area is Class B and C, and is supportive of small business or institutional users.

Industrial Market Overview
The Industrial market in Greensboro has experienced a steady and relatively large (10%) decrease in quoted rental rates since 2007. Vacancy rates have not been a major factor, in part due to a major drop in new and planned construction. In fact, through the first three quarters of 2011, the region is set to have over 1,039,438 square feet of positive net absorption.

The Study Area has a large amount of industrial space available on most major corridors to the south and east. As Greensboro grows and develops new communities off of I - 40/85 and NC - 70, some industrial areas inside the loop will be redeveloped and repositioned. For the purposes of this study, industrial corridors were viewed as positive employment centers and real estate opportunities areas.

Residential Market Overview

Avg Listing Price $236,776 Avg Sale Price $122,000

Average price per square foot for Greensboro NC was $82, a decrease of 2.4% compared to the same period last year. The median sales price for homes in Greensboro for Aug 11 to Oct 11 was $122,000 based on 209 home sales. Compared to the same period one year ago, the median home sales price decreased 1.6%, or $2,000, and the number of home sales decreased 69.6%. There are currently 2,228 resale and new homes in Greensboro on Trulia, including 9 open houses, as well as 653 homes in the pre-foreclosure, auction, or bank-owned stages of the foreclosure process. The average listing price for homes for sale in Greensboro was $236,776 for the week ending Nov 23, which represents an increase of 3.7%, or $8,424, compared to the prior week. Popular neighborhoods in Greensboro include Old Irving Park and Adams Farm, with average listing prices of $537,684 and $175,327.

Home prices in the Study Area varied greatly from below $50,000 to the mid/high $100’s. In general, East Greensboro’s homes are priced lower than other submarkets, and are older and smaller. The number of new home communities is generally limited to the outer edges of the Study Area and a few redeveloped housing projects such as Willow Oaks.

One of the most difficult challenges the area faces is the large inventory of low and extremely low income housing. These communities of older housing stock have below market rents and offer a mixture of quality levels ranging from the poorly-kept, unsafe renter housing to high quality, market leading Hope VI communities. In order to see new multi-family housing successfully developed by market rate developers, pricing must increase and housing quality levels must improve across the entire Study Area."

As you can see, the problems faced by Uptown Greensboro and the rest of East Greensboro are daunting.

Farmers Cookout

The Greensboro Farmers Market located on the corner of Yanceyville and Lindsay Streets (Google map) in the Uptown will host a cookout this Saturday beginning at 9:00 AM. Come humgry!

GPAC Task Force Seeks Final Input at Community Forums

The last of the Greensboro Performing Arts Center public forums will be held Thursday, May 24 - 7:30-9 am, 11:30 am to 1 pm, and again at 6-7:30 pm. at the Regency Room, 203 S. Elm St. (Google map)