Could development plans for this Durham shopping center save Food Lion, or kill it?

Developers revealed plans this week to add self-storage units to Durham’s Lakewood shopping center, an investment they say will help keep the neighborhood grocery store and pave the way for nicer, smaller shops.

But residents, many of whom rely on the Food Lion store, are skeptical.

“Self-storage isn’t something that would make me go to that shopping center,” Donna Frederick said. “We have an opportunity here.”

“The self-storage use is not the use that is going to draw people to this shopping center. That’s not the intent,” the developer’s attorney, Nil Ghosh, replied. “Self-storage is a way to help underwrite the significant investment that BrodyCo hopes to put into the center.”

BrodyCo, a family-owned commercial real estate firm based in Greenville, wants the city to rezone the 8-acre shopping center’s property, since self-storage is prohibited now.

Why is the shopping center being renovated?

Ghosh and land planner Dan Jewell laid out the plans in a two-hour virtual meeting Tuesday night. Over 180 people attended.

The row of storefronts north of Food Lion, which include El Futuro and the Scrap Exchange, are owned by the Scrap Exchange’s company and would be untouched by this project.

As for the other shops, only Food Lion would remain. The plans would upgrade the parking lot and raze the building that today houses a Dollar General, beauty store and clothing shop.

Ghosh said it’s not been maintained and the retail spaces are too large for modern retailers. Tax records indicate the plaza was built in 1959 and last paved in 1975.

Residents are concerned about losing the grocery store, but Ghosh said it is already “marginally performing.”

“The whole reason that this is being done is to generate enough revenue to do a big-time renovation and entice Food Lion to stay,” Jewell said.

“If Food Lion elects not to renew their lease, will (the developers) seek a new grocer for the plaza?” Nicole Easely asked.

Ghosh said it was too early to say.

He would not discuss the terms of the lease. Food Lion’s manager declined to speak with a reporter and the corporate office did not respond to questions.

What are the developers proposing?

A new 40-foot building is proposed closest to Chapel Hill Road, with self-storage above and shops below. Another row of shops is proposed on the other side of Food Lion.

“They want (the commercial spaces) to be smaller, both to attract smaller-scale, local tenants and also to make them more affordable than saying, ‘You have to take 10,000 square feet or nothing,’” Jewell said.

“What they are not looking to do is turn this into an area for your national chains,” Ghosh said.

Or, put another way: “They’re not hoping to get Chipotle.”

Do the developers have a bigger vision?

BrodyCo owns other land in Durham, including nearly six acres of undeveloped land northwest of the Scrap Exchange. They paid $350,000 for it in 2017, and it remains untouched.

A year later, the company paid $5.25 million at a foreclosure sale for the 9.5 acres containing Food Lion and a neighboring preschool that was deeded to another LLC last year.

But between the two sits the rest of Lakewood shopping center, owned by the Scrap Exchange.

“That’s the part that gives me the most pause. It’s not just that they want to rezone this one parcel. They have these additional parcels with a bigger vision that they’re not sharing,” said Heather Anne, interim executive director of the Scrap Exchange. “And that feels sketch.”

Ghosh declined to discuss the other land during the neighborhood meeting, despite several questions about it.

“Whatever their plan is with that five acres is not germane to the rezoning that they’re doing now,” he said.

Ann May Woodward, who ran the Scrap Exchange during its move to Lakewood a decade ago , said their leasing agent “always told us there was an investment company that had a blank check.”

Woodward said the Scrap Exchange wouldn’t sell to BrodyCo back then, and Anne said they won’t now either. The reuse arts center has been displaced several times before and the move to Lakewood was meant to be permanent.

Open Durham reports the shopping center — now styled the Shoppes at Lakewood — opened in 1960 on the site of a former amusement park at the end of a trolley line.

It contained a Woolworth’s, Winn-Dixie and many other shops, archival Herald-Sun photographs show.

What’s next?

The developers have not yet submitted a formal application.

After they do, the Planning Commission will hold a public hearing to consider how the proposal fits into elected leaders’ plans for Durham.

The Planning Commission will make a recommendation to the City Council, which will vote it up or down after another public hearing.

The public can speak during both of those meetings, which typically take several months to schedule.