The Future of Downtown Wilmington, NC

The Historic Preservation Commission's weakness before "blackmailing" developers will change the character of Downtown Wilmington forever.

As a Historic Preservation Commissioner, Donn Lashley sat in judgement over all who came before him. He judged applicants for the the color of paint they could put on their shutters, the type of brick they could use, or any modifications great or small. To some he gave the go-ahead, others he turned down flat. But none of them ever came before him with so obviously unacceptable a plan as the one he himself has now presented before the city.

A plan so ludicrous that the entire City staff was against it, and the local history librarian, and the Wilmington Historic Foundation, and all the newspapers. A plan so unworkable that only by blackmailing the Historic Preservation Commission with a condemnation order to have the building torn down otherwise, could he have ever gotten it approved. Mr. Lashley will put a four level condominum project on the top of one of Wilmington's most venerable and revered buildings, the Iron Works, which dates from about the time of the Civil War.

"I will build my project and you can't stop me," was the gist of Mr. Lashley's statements. To achieve these aims he offered a "better than nothing" compromise. He would retain the brick walls in memorium, incorporating them into his four level condo project.

The Iron Works building becomes absorbed, emasculated and essentially disappears into this other, vastly larger construction. It ceases being a recognizable Wilmington landmark. It becomes an instant ruins, and mere decor.

Once a building has lost its integrity it loses its future as well. For why restore and repair an increasingly ragged skirt of walls year after year when those walls do not have any connection to a living building, and no function? Why, when those walls become more and more unsightly with time, and when they do not quite "fit in" with the building rising above them? The truth is they will eventually be taken down (or allowed to fall down), even if they survive the massive construction going on around them. The latter seems doubtful in itself, since to some extent it is only the roof holding those walls up. The roof will be completely removed.

That this is happening is tragic. That a Historic Preservation Commissioner is behind it (one who enhanced his own career judging others) reveals the depths reached by human hypocrisy when the pay-off is large enough. But these pages are not about hypocrisy. They are about the beginning of a trend.

In fact it is not the beginning. It has been going on for years and in these pages you will learn the names of the actors in an enormous con game where Wilmingtonians foot the bill and our town's history is the loser. The future is even more grim. Now any developer can threaten to demolish a historic property and expect to get permission to modify and enlarge, however grotesquely, our historic skyline. Lashley's offer to leave a ragged skirt of bricks intact around the walls of his gigantic condominium complex is poor compensation for the loss of the integrity of this great historic building.

But it will not stop there.

The future will bring a drastically modified downtown on all parts of Water Street, Orange Street, Ann Street, Dock Street and perhaps even Market Street itself.

The Ice House property will soon be a five story mixed use residential project.

The City Market, overwhelmed by the size of its neighbor, will disappear beneath another five story residential structure just like it. Beside it, what is now the old Stemmerman's property parking lot will get another five story building.

The fate of the Iron Works has been described.

Expect the Chandler's Wharf shopping mall to be razed to make room for a five story building.

It's a bad dream, but we're not just dreaming. This is the reality of our future in downtown Wilmington, North Carolina.

There are many more properties we could describe, and every street in downtown Wilmington will suffer.

Huge buildings placed next to small ones make the small ones, no matter how historic, look absurd and shabby. In the resulting hodgepodge, the appearance of the town will suffer. Then these buildings too will be brought down and replaced.

It is a logical progression, a domino effect, among properties whose land has become too valuable for the structures on top of it.

Most of these projects will have one common and futile goal: to jockey for a better view of the river stolen away from the town by increased construction along the water's edge.

The rat-race to see the river has only started.

The end of the quaint beauty of Downtown Wilmington begins here.

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