Weaver St. walkabout: Sky's the limit, say marketplace backers
By Andrew deGrandpré

HILLSBOROUGH - Profane graffiti - most of it championing Satan and the pop metal band Korn - garnishes nearly every wall inside the hollowed-out Southern States building on Margaret Lane.

The structure, erected during the late 1940s, functioned as an agricultural cooperative for most of the last 50 years. A poster outlining feed-storage guidelines is still nailed to an exposed support beam. Both are draped in an almost-opaque cluster of cobwebs.

From the 1850s to the early 1900s, the property housed a nationally known girls academy - the Nash-Kollock School for Young Ladies. A century later, it serves mostly as a hangout for skateboarders.

But that may soon change.

Weaver Street Market, the Carrboro-based food cooperative looking to open a satellite store on the almost two-acre site by 2005, hosted a comprehensive design workshop Saturday a block away at Hillsborough's First Baptist Church. The six-hour forum attracted nearly 70 area residents, each of whom was asked to play a role in Weaver Street's exploratory process.

Organizers, which included members of the Walkable Hillsborough Coalition and a nonprofit design group, the Village Project, solicited input on desired amenities and architectural concepts, along with ideas for reducing environmental impacts and managing an inevitable increase in downtown traffic. It was the last of six meetings Weaver Street held locally with town officials, merchants and, finally, residents.

"We see this as information gathering from the community - which we will then use to turn into draft designs," said Ruffin Slater, Weaver Street's general manager.

Over the next several weeks, a team from the Village Project will sift through the suggestions made Saturday and pass off a pared-down list to developers. Weaver Street plans to seek another round of public feedback before presenting a formal proposal to the town, which will likely happen in the next six months, according to Slater.

This strategy is intended also to demonstrate the grocer's "sensitivity to the existing residential ... and business community," he said last weekend.

"If we're going to be able to afford to do things for the community," Slater said, "we need this to be an efficient process. The money we save will be contributed to community good."

BRAIN PICKING

Some future patrons of a Hillsborough co-op want the facility to double as a grocery store and town hub. Several shared hope that Weaver Street Market would use some of the land to house a small outdoor amphitheater - a feature, they said, which would lend itself nicely to Last Fridays Celebrations, public art displays, live music and open-air movies.

Others hope the market will actively seek to involve the area's growing Hispanic community and accommodate local teens. There was more than one request to dedicate a portion of the site for a skate park.

With the Eno located just a few hundred yards south of the property, a constant theme Saturday called for joining the property with a pending walking trail along the river.

"I hope they would be mindful of the site's proximity to the river, and that they'd take care to ensure that the existing ecosystem is preserved and incorporated into any plans they do decide to develop," said Hillsborough resident Carolyn Norris, who participated in the Saturday's workshop though she is not a current member of the co-op. "There are a lot of possibilities and they could really make this an asset to the community."

NEXTDOOR NEIGHBOR IS ONBOARD

As a co-founder of the Walkable Hillsborough Coalition, Holly Reid has taken an active interest in bringing the market to town. Weaver Street's apparent commitment to involving the community in its decision-making should stand as a benchmark as Hillsborough considers its future growth, she said. Linking the property with the rest of downtown - by way of existing and future sidewalks - is among her top priorities.

Nearby Margaret Lane residents are likely to be affected - perhaps substantially - by the addition of a grocery store-plus along the slender street, Reid noted. The influx of delivery trucks and everyday customers, she said, will have to be cautiously considered.

"It's wonderful to have residents so close-by," Reid said. "But (those who frequent any future development there) will have to be good neighbors. I'm sure it would get old if there is noise all the time."

Bob Richardson, who lives with his wife, fellow author Annie Dillard, next to the proposed site on Margaret Lane, said the project has the capacity to foster a "reclamation of what used to be here." The prospect of reinventing downtown Hillsborough as a bustling village with ample foot traffic and cultural activities is exciting, he said.

"That's what a town is about," Richardson said. "It's about people."