Backbone of our entire community': The chaos of Wilmington's Market Street sprawl - StarNewsOnline.com

While most of the Port City slept, this stretch of town was usually wide awake with crime.

Half a decade ago, more than 60% of Wilmington's illegal activity in hotels occurred along a two-mile strip of road here, according to police data. Most happened in just six motels.

So bad was it that in December 2015, New Hanover County District Attorney Ben David deemed them "nuisance properties" due to repeated reports of drugs, prostitution, gun violence and general mayhem. Wilmington Police Chief at the time, Ralph Evangelous, joined the legal push.  

But these days change feels like it has come to Market Street, developers and locals say, as the historic, messy "backbone of our entire community" continues to evolve in ways hard to predict.

It remains a blink-and-you'll-miss-it kind of street with seedy-looking stretches and strip malls mixed with signs of infill and redevelopment. LED and neon signs flicker in the night. Tattooed drifters, sad-eyed underdogs and those who destiny never gave a chance, still wander this well-traveled road.

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To Wilmington builder Dave Spetrino, much of the development along Market Street, specifically between Covil Avenue and College Road, looks chaotic and messy.

"There's really nobody in charge," he said.

But Spetrino also sees hope.  

Spanish moss mansions to strip malls 

At its core, Market Street is a historic connector.

It's a thoroughfare dating back to the days when Wilmington was a fledgling city and the road linked local merchants with the fabled markets of New Bern, 90 miles away. 

The corridor was one of the Port City's first streets to see major commercial development, according to longtime Wilmington developer Gene Merritt.

Like the past, a journey along Market Street starts by heading uphill from downtown, past Bellamy Mansion, a house-turned museum built in the mid-1800s by one of Wilmington's wealthiest merchants.

More modern businesses -- attorneys' offices, a gas station and the first of two Family Dollar stores -- follow, but they still maintain some historic feel. 

Then a stretch with such incredible early-20th century Georgian and Classical Revival style mansions that it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1975. 

Other commercial corridors that define our local sense of space and self followed, including Carolina Beach Road, Oleander Drive, Military Cutoff Road, Merritt said.

But after the mansions, Market makes a jarring transition -- the strip malls and motels of the 1960s, '70s, '80s and '90s.

Many were erected cheaply, without consideration of their surroundings and neighboring structures -- land that borders the thoroughfare broken up into many lots, each with a different owner. 

That fractured ownership has limited cohesive planning and development as the area has evolved over the years.

For Merritt, Market Street illustrates a progression of Wilmington's sprawl from downtown toward the beach.

"What you've seen is suburbanization, urban sprawl and strip development, quite frankly," he said.

The roughly two-mile stretch between Market Street's intersections with Covil Avenue and College Road, is home to at least four strip malls, 15 budget hotels and 33 restaurants -- including 16 national chains.

Excluding restaurants, 90 other businesses are packed into those two miles, including six tire stores, two pawn shops, an Asian food market and a Bingo hall.

"There is no particular rhyme and reason to the architecture," Merritt said. "To me, all development ought to be built within the context of where it is and what's around it."

Cars bump across a railroad track that cuts across Market -- a bygone reminder of the trains that used to crisscross the corridor.

Nearby, the family-owned Goody Goody Omelet house has been slinging eggs and big Southern breakfasts for decades. Farther up, the taproom at Bill's Brewing Company serves up cold beer while teams play beach volleyball in the back. 

Farther still, another Family Dollar, hair salon and a wig shop operate alongside a beauty supply store and a plasma donation center in a strip mall.

A seedy rep

When the city took legal action against the six Market Street hotels in late 2015, the nuisance abatement order it issued because of repeated incidents of controlled substance use, loitering and prostitution, was strong enough to mean something. 

By July 2016, the hotels agreed to put in place measures to cut down on criminal activity.

Since then, four of the six "public nuisance" hotels have changed hands and are under new ownership, according to Deputy City Attorney Meredith Everhart.

Travelodge has been refurbished and remodeled into a Motel 6. America's Best Value Inn initially became an AmeriVu Inn & Suites but saw damage from Hurricane Florence. The building was sold last year and has been renovated into the Suites on Market.

The Ramada Inn is being renovated into two Hilton-brand hotels and developers are planning to turn the Budetel Inn next door into efficiency apartments.

Amid all this change, Market Street crime statistics have become murky, authorities say.

Deputy City Attorney Everhart, Wilmington Police Department Chief Donny Williams, and District Attorney David could not provide the StarNews with crime trends at the "public nuisance" hotels since the abatement order was issued, nor would they detail crime trends in the Market Street corridor more broadly.

When the StarNews made a public records request for the number of violent crimes on Market Street addresses between Covil Avenue and College Road since 2017, Wilmington City Clerk Penelope Spicer-Sidbury said the police department does not "maintain reports on specific types of crimes by roads or small areas of the city."

As an explanation, Everhardt did offer that since the "public nuisance" abatement orders went into effect, the hotels have sheltered people displaced by Hurricanes Florence and Isaias and housed medical workers and those positive for COVID-19 during the pandemic.

"These factors changed the nature of who was coming to the hotels, why they were in the hotels, and how long they were staying, which are all factors that can throw off any attempt to find trends in activity," Everhardt wrote in an email.

Drugs dealers drift away    

Business owners along Market Street say they see incidents of crime but things aren't as bad as they once were.

Drew Keller, the owner of Ivy Cottage, has worked on Market Street for more than 20 years. He's noticed less crime as sections of the street have redeveloped.

Keller recently opened a new Ivy Cottage showroom in a building at 3941 Market St. Ten years ago he never would have considered such a move. There was just too much crime.

Business owners still witness some break-ins, Keller said, but he's noticed that other types of crime have dropped off.

"We used to have a big problem with prostitutes walking back and forth," he said. "That's been eliminated."

Jody Dorsey, the owner of Flea Body's antique mall, has noticed a reduction in crime since she moved into her store 16 years ago. 

She still occasionally finds beer cans on her front sidewalk from people loitering overnight.

"Before we moved in, there were drug deals going down in our parking lot, and that's not happening anymore," she said. 

Dorsey attributes the safety improvements to the redevelopment of nearby lots and vacant buildings and changing neighborhood demographics.

"The area is active, there's more people coming and going," she added.

Everhardt agreed that redevelopment along the corridor could help curb some of the crime.

"New development coming in, and renovation or restoration of older buildings … are all things that contribute in a positive way towards crime trends anywhere," she wrote in an email to the StarNews.

Spetrino is leading one redevelopment. In 2020, his company PBC Design + Build purchased a church that's stood along Market Street for more than 100 years. 

The fellowship hall of the former Pearsall Memorial Presbyterian Church has now been renovated into office space for the company. The church is undergoing repair work and could become a restaurant, Spetrino said, although plans for the site aren't yet set in stone.

The corridor starts to 'retool'

Spetrino plans to build more than 190 apartments on the seven acres of land behind the church.

He foresees continued growth along Market Street as Wilmington's population continues to climb and the community "thickens up" with denser development.

But growth along the corridor hasn't always been the case.

As other roads in Wilmington like Carolina Beach Road, Oleander Drive, College Road and Military Cutoff developed as commercial corridors, businesses left Market Street for other high-traffic spots.

Historically, Market Street served as the city's hospitality hub with hotels dotting the wayside, but today, that hub has shifted downtown, Spetrino said.

"That has required all the hotel rooms along Market Street, which proliferated in the '60s and '70s, to retool or change up," he said.

Two of the infamous "public nuisance" Market Street hotels are doing exactly that.

The former Ramada Inn at 5001 Market St. is being converted into two Hilton-brand hotels. Construction has been ongoing on the site since November 2020.

Next door, there plans are afoot to convert a Budgetel at 4903 Market St. into more than 230 efficiency apartments.

Dorsey and Keller said they're excited about the hotel redevelopment because it could bring more housing and people to the corridor, which could translate into more foot traffic for businesses, Keller said.

In planning for future growth, the city of Wilmington is looking to encourage redevelopment of existing buildings and new infill development and improve Market Street's aesthetic, according to Ron Satterfield, interim director of Wilmington's planning, development and transportation department. 

The city seeks to make Market Street accessible for people to both live and work in the area, Satterfield said. 

Goals for the corridor are outlined in the city's comprehensive plan and will be incrementally implemented by its newly adopted land development code.

Reflecting on the ark of development, Satterfield added that Market Street guided Wilmington's initial growth as the city limits pushed further out from the Cape Fear River.

That growth has mostly been driven by automobile culture. People on foot have always been a different story. 

Abandoned spaces 

A wander along abandoned railroad tracks that run parallel to Market Street is a world apart from the bustling traffic nearby.

Through wild, overgrown wisteria is space where one might head to relax and drink a beer at the end of the work week.  

One recent Friday, the tracks were eerily empty save for three yellow rail cars. They had no engine. Their purpose appeared unclear.

Just past them a man, powerfully built and bald, sat drinking canned beer amid the wisteria. 

He hung around the "public nuisance" hotels back when they were wild and he laughed about it. But he didn't want any trouble, he said, adding that he preferred to be left alone at the end of a long week.

Further along, a burned-out patch of grass was littered with objects melted by fire: a miniature action figure, pieces of plastic, more beer cans and even bone fragments.

Like NASCAR, they roar along

Back on the pavement, cars fly along, four lanes of fast motion, passing locally owned staples like Indochine or Goody Goody and then, increasingly, national chains like Sonic and Olive Garden.

Historic neighborhoods whip by, Forest Hills, Carolina Place before cars speed through what Merritt calls the "mansion district" and what many say is the too-narrow stretch. 

During rush hour, traffic sometimes backs up along the corridor, Merritt said.

"Right now, it's like a NASCAR race track," he added. "Every person for themselves."

Some Wilmington residents see Market Street as a perpetually congested road with chaotic development patterns and a seedy past, but, according to Spetrino, the area has and will continue to serve as an important connector in the city and as an area for future redevelopment.

"Market Street has been a maligned street, really, for decades, and it will continue to have its challenges," he said. "The character and the history and the reason that Market Street is where it is because it's the backbone of our entire community."

Reporter Emma Dill can be reached at 910-343-2096 or edill@gannett.com.

Backbone of our entire community': The chaos of Wilmington's Market Street sprawl - StarNewsOnline.com