Happenings in the Heart of the Bull City
September 2022
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- News
- Event Highlights
- Biz Briefs
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- Ambassador Stories
- Clean & Safe Stats
- Meetings, Trainings & Forums
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CenterFest Returns to Downtown; Here's What You Need to Know
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CenterFest, the longest-running juried outdoor arts festival in North Carolina, will return to downtown this weekend, September 17 & 18. Hosted by the Durham Arts Council, the 47th Annual CenterFest will feature juried visual artists from near and far, great entertainment, lots of food and fun, and educational activities for kids. More than 30,000 visitors will attend the event over the weekend. Festival hours are Saturday 10 a.m. – 6 p.m., and Sunday 11 a.m. – 5 p.m. To add to the fun and encourage visitors to eat, drink and shop downtown, DDI will 'hide' $10 SpendaBull gift cards throughout the event footprint on Saturday and Sunday mornings.
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Road Closures
The event opens a significant number of city center streets to pedestrian traffic. Main is closed to vehicles from Corcoran to Great Jones. Chapel Hill is closed from Foster to Great Jones, and Morris is closed between Chapel Hill and Morgan. Corcoran will remain open in both directions. Click the map at right to see a larger version.
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Rolling street closures will begin at 2 p.m. on Friday within the event footprint to allow the site to be cleared of vehicles on the street. Cars should be removed from the streets and the Bull City Business (Ninth Street Bakery) parking lot by 5 p.m. The Manning Place Parking Lot closed to vehicles on Wednesday at 11 p.m. and will remain closed throughout the event. The streets will remain closed until Sunday at 10 p.m.
Parking
Park Durham issued the following information about parking during Centerfest:
To help make this event enjoyable for all who are attending, the city's five parking garages will have all gates temporarily raised for easy entry and exit during this two-day event.
Please note that paid special event parking will be in effect at the Durham Centre Garage, Church Street Garage and Corcoran Street Garage at various times throughout the weekend, which means event rates will go into effect 90 minutes before the event start times as noted on the online calendar at https://parkdurham.org/164/Special-Event-Parking. The rate is $7 per vehicle at these three garages during the special event dates and times as noted on the calendar. There is no special event parking in effect at the Chapel Hill Street Garage or Morgan-Rigsbee Garage, which means parking is free for the entire weekend.
Other Events
This is a busy weekend downtown! With Third Friday, CenterFest, Beats n Bars, Cider Jam, the Golden Belt Block Party, the premiere weekend of FROZEN at DPAC and more – there's something for everyone. We've highlighted a few of these events below. Enjoy a fantastic weekend downtown.
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DDI Partners with DPAC to Promote Downtown Businesses
Beginning with the premier of FROZEN the Broadway musical, DPAC and DDI have partnered to create DPACnDowntown. Here's how it works:
Downtown restaurants and shops create special food, drink, events or gift items that tie-in with the current production at DPAC, then DDI and DPAC use our combined marketing reach to promote those tie-ins and our downtown businesses!
Visit the DPACnDowntown webpage for a complete listing of FROZEN tie-ins, and follow @dpacnc and @downtowndurham for social media shout outs.
Downtown merchants: Do you have a FROZEN tie-in you'd like us to include? Contact [email protected].
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Keep Up with the Community Safety Department HEART Program
In July, the city's Community Safety Department launched three pilot programs to explore new ways to respond to non-violent behavioral and mental health crises.
When a 911 call comes in, the HEART (Holistic Empathetic Assistance Response Teams) pilot programs provide several new ways to respond depending on the situation, including:
- Connecting callers with a mental health professional (Crisis Call Diversion)
- Sending a three-person unarmed team (Community Response Teams)
- Following up to connect residents with community-based services (Care Navigation)
To date, there have been more than 500 HEART responses, including over 230 on-scene responses, over 200 callers connected to a mental health clinician, and over 60 follow-ups to connect residents with further care.
To help evaluate and share the impact of the pilots, the Community Safety team has published an interactive dashboard, with the latest data. The department is using this data to continue to evolve and expand, with a Co-Response Pilot set to launch later this month. This fourth pilot will pair clinicians and police officers to respond to behavioral health calls that pose a greater potential safety risk.
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Downtown Workers Invited to Participate in Bull E-Bike Pilot
The City of Durham’s Transportation Department is conducting the Bull E-Bike Pilot to learn more about how electric bikes (e-bikes) can be deployed to improve the transportation experience in the Bull City. The city is seeking participants who work downtown to use a pedal-assist e-bike for 4+ weeks in exchange for sharing information about their experience, including tracking their travel via a smartphone app. In addition to the e-bike, participants will receive a helmet, u-lock, and other accessories, plus maintenance support.
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BEATS N BARS FESTIVAL 2022
• SEPTEMBER 17
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BeatsnBars welcomes you to a FREE fun-filled day of music, paint & sip, contests, dodgeball, trivia, fashion show and more all day!
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GOLDEN BELT BLOCK PARTY • SEPTEMBER 17
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Vendors and neighborhood amenities, including Book Harvest, the Durham Tech Mobile Health Lab, Caption Call, Oak Street Health, neighborhood improvement services and more!
Arts from resident Golden Belt artists.
Feel good music from D.J. JDmL 5-7 p.m.
Live music from Ricardo Diquez & the Tropic Orchestra 7:30-9 p.m.
Bouncy house for the kids.
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Prepare for Cider Jam at Bull City Ciderworks! It's an all-day event filled with live music, DJs and cider. Musical guests include: DJ Vespertine, Kevin Holdson, DJ Stormtrooper and Vibe Exotica!
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Small Plates Crawl
Every Thursday night, visit participating downtown restaurants and bars for a special menu! Some venues will highlight a special small plate, others will offer discounts and some will provide pairings from their bar. Visit durhamsmallplatescrawl.com for more info and a list of participating restaurants.
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The Mix at Durham Station
Start your Third Friday off right! GoDurham and DDI present The Mix with music from DJ Piddipat, 3:30-6:30 p.m. at Durham Station on September 16.
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Third Friday Art Walk & Gallery Crawl
Visit galleries and other art venues downtown and beyond on September 16 and every third Friday of the month! Find a complete list of Third Friday events, and submit your own, at thirdfridaydurham.org.
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This month's featured artwork:
Mt. Rainier frogskin agate stone on brass by Jennifer Jones, LoveJones Co., on view at Cecy’s Gallery & Studios, 417 Foster St.
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Biz Briefs highlight important information for businesses in the Downtown Business Improvement District. Items are curated by the DDI Director of Business Engagement, Tiffany Bashore. Contact Tiffany for more information about anything included in this section or for assistance, questions or concerns about starting, running or growing a business in downtown Durham.
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DDI continues to work with the city to get a downtown Durham social district up and running. It looks likely that it will be presented to the City Council on Thursday, October 6 at the 1 p.m. work session.
It is very important that the council members know downtown businesses overwhelmingly support the creation of a social district. If you are a downtown business owner, please attend the work session and consider speaking (3 minutes or less) to share your personal stories of why a social district in downtown Durham could benefit your business.
Contact [email protected] for information on how to sign up to speak. We will contact business owners if the date changes, otherwise we hope to see you there on Oct. 6.
If you have not already done so, please fill out this brief opt-in/opt-out form to indicate whether your business will participate in the social district, either by selling drinks to-go or by allowing beverages in your place of business.
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FREE GOOGLE WORKSHOP: INCREASE YOUR HOLIDAY SALES
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Google will host a free workshop on Wednesday, Oct. 12 from 12 noon to 1 p.m. It offers easy-to-learn tips for merchants, from using Google tools to promote products online to listing products on a Google Business Profile. The workshop will also cover the Google Merchant Center and other ways to help businesses gear up digitally for the holiday shopping season.
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The Traffic Report Calendar lists events and happenings that may affect foot traffic and/or parking. It includes road closures and major events happening downtown.
Subscribe to the calendar or view it online for the most up-to-date information.
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DOWNTOWN VISITORS: August 2022
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DDI uses technology that extrapolates the number of unique visitors and visits to downtown based on cell phone data. The figures below include those who remain in the area for a minimum of seven minutes. Residents and employees are removed. The data can be filtered for smaller areas, and comparison figures are available for previous months or years. Contact Rebekah Mixon to request a custom report.
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▶ American Tobacco District
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267,600
Visits
41,165
Average Week
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182,300
Unique Visitors
Saturday
Busiest Day
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5,881
Visitors Per Day
7-8 p.m.
Busiest Hour
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114,000
Visits
15,558
Average Week
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68,900
Unique Visitors
Saturday
Busiest Day
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2,223
Visitors Per Day
11 p.m. – 12 a.m.
Busiest Hour
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184,600
Visits
25,855
Average Week
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114,500
Unique Visitors
Saturday
Busiest Day
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3,694
Visitors Per Day
6-7 p.m.
Busiest Hour
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199,000
Visits
28,406
Average Week
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125,800
Unique Visitors
Saturday
Busiest Day
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4,058
Visitors Per Day
7-8 p.m.
Busiest Hour
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38,700
Visits
5,035
Average Week
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22,300
Unique Visitors
Wednesday
Busiest Day
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719
Visitors Per Day
1-2 p.m.
Busiest Hour
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▶ Government Services District
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148,400
Visits
19,126
Average Week
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84,700
Unique Visitors
Tuesday
Busiest Day
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2,732
Visitors Per Day
10-11 a.m.
Busiest Hour
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70,600
Visits
10,432
Average Week
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46,200
Unique Visitors
Saturday
Busiest Day
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1,490
Visitors Per Day
7-8 p.m.
Busiest Hour
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The following businesses recently opened or closed in downtown Durham.
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Restaurant: American
359 Blackwell St., Suite 125
Contact: Seth Umstead
Barbershop
105 W. Parrish St.
Contact: Tyrone Adams
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Restaurant: Tea
123 Market St., Suite A
Contact: Morgan Siegel
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Fall Ambassador Team Update: September 2022
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Erik Nystrom, Clean and Safe Operations Manager
I admit it: Fall is my favorite time of the year. With both college and professional football starting, cooler days with less humidity and bright blue skies, what’s not to love? As a foodie junkie, I love to cook (which is a big reason why I think my wife agreed to marriage). The fall harvest season down here provides a bounty of foods to choose from and prepare, and to me there is nothing better than spending Sundays making some of my family’s favorite dishes when football is on. Before we know it, Halloween and the Christmas holiday season will be upon us, and I love watching my kids celebrating these holidays.
Your Ambassador Team is also excited about fall for many of the same reasons that I am. The cooler temperatures are especially a very welcome change. With the cooler weather comes a slight shift in some of our work. As the growing season winds down and less attention is needed on broadleaf weed abatement and grass cutting, more time is spent on pressure and power washing much of the sidewalks, curbs and other right-of-ways. We are also spending more time repainting and touching up our downtown trashcans, bike racks and benches. It’s amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do! This work will continue until the leaves start to fall in earnest later this season, which will cause our focus to shift once again. Please keep your eye out for your Ambassador Team, and feel free to chat it up with them. We are always happy to see you!
I’ve included some recent pictures of your team and some of the work they’ve been doing. See you downtown!
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Downtown Durham's dedicated Ambassador Team provides much needed clean and safe services. From sweeping and cleaning the streets, to providing directions for visitors, to jumpstarting car batteries, our ambassadors are here to help. Have questions? Just stop one and ask. Need to submit a service request? Call 919-682-BULL (2855) or submit a request online.
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Clean and Safe Service
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Trash Bags Collected
______________________________________________
Graffiti Removed - Paint
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Graffiti Removed - Stickers
______________________________________________
Customer Service (Directions, Battery Jumps, etc.)
______________________________________________
Panhandlers/Outreach/Social Service Referral
______________________________________________
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July 2022
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9000
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12
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148
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27
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31
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Sep. 19; Oct. 3, 17
Sep. 22; Oct. 6, 20
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Regular Meetings: 1st & 3rd Mondays at 7 p.m.
Work Sessions: Two Thursdays prior to Council meetings
at 1 p.m.
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Sep. 28; Oct. 10, 24
Oct. 3
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Regular Meetings: 2nd & 4th Mondays at 7 p.m.
Work Sessions: 1st Monday at 9 a.m.
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Downtown Durham, Inc.
307 W. Main St. • #102
Durham, NC 27701
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This newsletter serves the businesses, residents and property owners
We're grateful for their support of DDI and downtown Durham.
We also thank the City of Durham for entrusting DDI to provide the BID services
that keep downtown Durham a clean, safe and vibrant place.
Want to know if an address is within the BID?
SHOP LOCAL!
Support downtown businesses with the SpendaBull gift card.
Your feedback on this newsletter is welcome.
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For up-to-the-minute information on happenings in the heart of the Bull City:
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