Years of discussions culminated late last week in the University's purchase of a tobacco warehouse from Liggett Group Inc., Executive Vice President Tallman Trask announced Monday. The building, currently used by Liggett to print cigarette cartons, will likely be used by Duke for an arts complex and for office space.
Duke and Liggett closed the deal late Thursday, making the warehouse at 114 S. Buchanan Blvd. the latest addition to Duke's campus. The $2 million property includes about 200,000 square feet of building space and about eight acres of the surrounding land.
"This really completes the campus," Trask said. "It's the only piece of land we have not owned that's really in the campus' boundary."
The terms of the purchase allow Liggett to lease the center section of the warehouse for up to 15 years, but Trask said there would still be plenty of room for renovation at each end of the two-story building. The west end-about 50,000 square feet-should become available for renovations within the next six to 12 months.
Liggett
Members of Duke's arts community-who have long been asking administrators for more space-are particularly pleased with the acquisition, which they say could help push their programs forward.
"In the absence of a [plan to build a] performing arts center from the ground up, I think it's a wonderful possibility for adding to the arts spaces at Duke," said Kathy Silbiger, program director of the Institute for the Arts. "Duke arts programs have long been limited, not so much by ideas or imagination, but by no space to do things."
Silbiger said the warehouse would both improve the arts programs' rehearsal facilities and foster connections between the disciplines; currently,
"I think proximity always helps collaboration," she said. "You can informally influence one another when you're in closer proximity."
The warehouse's structure is similar to that of Brightleaf Square, the shopping plaza located at the intersection of Main Street and Gregson Street. Currently, the building is divided into 12 8,400-square-feet sections, but the University will conduct major renovations before turning the facility into an arts center.
"I think it's a tremendously exciting development for the city of Durham and Duke," said religion professor Eric Meyers, chair of the task force on the programs in dance, drama and film and video, which in its Jan. 6 report strongly advocated creating a campus arts center. "I think it's a glorious space that the University has. It's going to be very charming."
Trask said that in addition to the tobacco warehouse, the arts programs would likely receive even more space in the steam plant off of East Campus.
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