http://goodnightraleigh.com/2009/04/are-we-saying-goodbye-to-the-wilmont/

4/29/2009 12:01:38 AM

bye?

4/29/2009 12:02:40 AM

http://savewilmont.com/

cool building. but i don't know if it can be saved! especially not in 30 days.

4/29/2009 12:05:08 AM

never lived there but always thought it was a cool building and I knew a few people that lived there... one of the few places near campus for students with a little history

4/29/2009 12:06:10 AM

my friend lives there. well...kinda. she hasn't been in her apt for like all of april because the ceiling is falling down.

4/29/2009 12:07:23 AM

haha, speaking of goodnightraleigh, this is an awesome post

http://goodnightraleigh.com/2009/03/enterprise-street-a-motley-crew-of-unlikely-neighbors/

4/29/2009 12:17:39 AM

I hope the owner gets his shit together, but I doubt it since they've been trying to repair the fire escapes for at least a year now. I live next door and I don't really want to live next to a vacant lot but I have a hard time believing it's going to be in code in the next month.

4/29/2009 12:31:41 AM

Signed. The Wilmont has been a Hillsborough Street fixture since its construction in the 1920's, and it's a beautiful building with loads of character, plus the eclectic mix of residents. The loss of that community if everyone is evicted would be tragic, but the loss of the building itself would tear another huge hole in the fabric that makes Raleigh special. We're already losing two noteworthy downtown buildings, the Garland Jones and the 1920's Lawyers building, for the new judicial complex--the city needs to realize that there's a difference between prohibiting substandard housing, and just throwing a community out into the street to penalize the landlord. It seems like he's making a good faith effort to address the problems, serious though they may be, and if he doesn't meet their arbitrary deadline, the residents are punished? Doesn't sound right to me. He certainly should not have let things reach this point in the first place, so the issues he's having to fix are of his own making, but this just doesn't seem fair to the tenants.

Quote :

"I hope the owner gets his shit together, but I doubt it since they've been trying to repair the fire escapes for at least a year now. I live next door and I don't really want to live next to a vacant lot but I have a hard time believing it's going to be in code in the next month."

If it's not up to code within the month they're not going to immediately move to demolish, that's the deadline for when they would start eviction on the residents. Then they would have to condemn the building, there would be hearings, I'm sure they'd try to force the owner to sell and find a new buyer who would repair or upgrade and preseve...etc. etc. As much as demolition worries me, I tend to think a building like this would at worst be purchased, gutted and rebuilt as higher-end units. The real estate there is not so valuable as to spell doom for the building. But part of what makes it special is the community and that is where the immediate danger lies.

[Edited on April 29, 2009 at 12:38 AM. Reason : f]

4/29/2009 12:35:25 AM

bump for the (mid) morning crew

4/29/2009 10:56:35 AM

god dammit

it's been my dream since i was a kid to live there and i was going to look into it when i move back to raleigh in july

PLZ TO SAVE TEH WILMONT

4/29/2009 11:03:42 AM

put http://savewilmont.com on facebook statuses.
social networking; annoying but useful!

4/29/2009 11:27:48 AM

i've always wondered what the interior of the apartments look like there...

4/29/2009 11:31:25 AM

that meth lab should have been should have been torn down years ago

4/29/2009 11:34:03 AM

it's an eyesore anyway. let it go.

4/29/2009 11:59:30 AM

One man's eyesore is another man's art. It's an imposing, well-balanced brick buidling with a lot of nice details, and the facade is actually in pretty good shape. The balcony "ornamentation" put up by the residents is rather more subjective, but I think it's part of the character.

For those of you who have no idea what building we're talking about, it's this building, down Hillsborogh street near Reader's Corner and the yellow bulldozer building:

4/29/2009 12:14:19 PM

im sorry that place is a run down eye sore full of fail. wouldnt be so bad if they looked more the units across from St.Marys

4/29/2009 12:17:55 PM

Which units across from St. Mary's--Cameron Court? Boylan Apts? St. Mary's Apts? Other than being in better shape (which is the issue at hand, true, but other than needing some paint and a pressure wash you can't really tell from the front) and not having front-facing balconies, what is the big difference you're seeing?

Honestly interested, not trying to start something. I don't live there, never have, but I've always thought it was a really cool old building, much like its usually overlooked cross-street neighbor the Fincastle.

4/29/2009 12:21:20 PM

if it weren't falling apart inside it would be a cool building.

otherwise its just a shithole old building.

I'm all for someone coming in and fixing it up. Unfortunately it'd probably almost be cheaper to tear it down and build something from scratch.

4/29/2009 12:37:11 PM

some of the apartments are nice inside. the metal stairway on the back is pretty sketchy though

4/29/2009 12:39:19 PM

^^Boylan Apts. sorry.just look at all the cluter outside on the balconys, it isnt maintained well. and thereis a drug bust there every year or so

4/29/2009 12:48:39 PM

that place looks like shit

4/29/2009 12:51:29 PM

not to mention its bringing down the price of the nice condos behind it,in that little office park

4/29/2009 12:53:45 PM

its one of the few stretches of Hillsborough where you actually have residences/balconies overlooking the street... definitely needs to be saved if at all possible.

4/29/2009 1:30:43 PM

i love the balcony clutter.

but i like character.

its mostly plants and christmas lights anyway. soooo offensive!

the inside of the units are nice (i mean minus the falling down ceilings and stuff). they are older; but so are other apts around--that isn't the problem. old isn't the problem. inhabitable is the problem. but old doesn't = inhabitable.

[Edited on April 29, 2009 at 2:11 PM. Reason : .]

4/29/2009 2:10:02 PM

my weed guy lived there my sophomore year

my coke guy lived there my junior year

same guy...he got promoted

4/29/2009 2:12:39 PM

Quote :

"that place looks like shit"

oh ok, well if TWW's resident retard couple think it looks bad we should clearly tear it down

4/29/2009 2:13:57 PM

so someone complained about a hole in the roof, eh?

this sounds rather familiar.

4/29/2009 2:14:32 PM

My good friend lives in one of those apartments and while it isnt what i would call nice on the inside it didnt seem too decrepit. I wouldnt raise a family in it but it seems fine for those that want a relatively cheap place and dont mind having some issues to deal with. Of course it isnt like i was able check the wiring or anything so maybe it is a deathtrap.

4/29/2009 4:02:31 PM

It's probably in worse shape than it looks (a lot of old buildings are) but in most cases, maintenance items like wiring, plumbing, and structural issues are left unatteneded until something (in this case a hole in the ceiling of one apartment) causes a more detailed inspection, where the major violations come to light. Obviously the place needs a lot of work, and the owner seems serious about doing the work.

The other side of the coin is, if the owner (despite past neglect) is making a good faith effort to rectify the situation and fix the problems, which he appears to be, but can't get it done by the city's timeline, the residents who are willing to put up with the issues and stick around shouldn't be forced to leave. This is not an issue of people being forced to put up with substandard housing because it's all they can afford; I would wager most of the residents of the Wilmont are not there because it's the absolute cheapest place they can find. They chose to live there in the first place, and if they choose to stay while work is being done, I don't think it's the city's place to throw them all out.

Though this could open a much bigger soap box style debate about housing code enforcement and whether or not folks should be allowed to live in a substandard property knowing the risks...not trying to venture too far into that.

4/29/2009 6:02:41 PM

ive definately been in one of those apts before. it actually wasn't bad inside.

thread title reminded me of:

4/29/2009 7:16:53 PM

bttt, since I was going to make this thread.

Take a minute and sign the petition. It won't do shit, but do it anyway.

5/4/2009 1:01:52 PM

Good news!
http://www.newsobserver.com/politics/story/1545127.html

5/28/2009 10:08:57 AM

Quote :

"It has 24 units, 13 of which were occupied when the City Council declared the building unfit for human habitation on April 21."

had people already moved out b/c of this, or was this place really just sitting at 50% occupancy?

5/28/2009 10:24:03 AM

what do you think. the place is a shit hole, what crack head or hippy in their right mind would rent a unit in that place

5/28/2009 10:30:08 AM

i think that even shitty places can fill rooms.

5/28/2009 10:30:52 AM

I helped my friends move out of there yesterday.

There was a killer party there last weekend. Some of us were chilling on the roof for a while around sunrise. I didn't find any soft spots or holes and it looked pretty intact, thanks to all the patches

5/28/2009 10:53:10 AM

he paid $50,000 per unit not a bad deal at all I wonder what the monthly rent is there

5/28/2009 1:19:47 PM

http://savewilmont.com/?p=20#more-20


i've always liked this building

5/28/2009 1:34:08 PM

save hipster apartments!

5/28/2009 2:49:39 PM

Any news?

7/20/2009 2:58:56 PM

Quote :

"my weed guy lived there my sophomore year my coke guy lived there my junior year same guy...he got promoted"

hahahaha, the christmas light pentagram was always my favorite thing

7/20/2009 3:01:20 PM

http://www.simplifiedconstruction.com/project/wilmont

Quote :

"The Wilmont Apartment building consists of 24 units, 8- 2 bedroom with bonus, 8- 2 bedroom and 8- 1 bedroom apartments. The Wilmont was built in the 1930's and is well known for its character and charm. Currently the Wilmont is under going extensive renovations and will soon be a great place to live with updated Kitchens and Baths show casing beautiful ceramic tile, granite counter tops and hardwood floors."

8/10/2009 4:45:40 PM

thats unfortunate

8/10/2009 4:54:09 PM

yeah it's gonna be pricey to live there

8/10/2009 4:54:55 PM

Turning it into shmancy "loft" apartments then?

I wanna see if they call em lofts just to make em sound all classy and shit.

Keep in mind the fact that, while it's gonna be expensive and none of you all will be living there as students, it will bring some people with $$$ near NCSU and could help revitalize the area a bit (people with stable jobs and more money = better for businesses in the surrounding area). If that started happening as a trend you might see more developers come along and renovate buildings along hillsborough st (adding businesses, housing, bars, clubs, etc).

8/10/2009 4:57:07 PM

BTTT

12/10/2009 2:09:23 PM

So the people who own the building are using out-of-context quotes from the Save the Wilmont campaign to describe the renovated building, which assuredly won't be a run-down-but-charming community. They're also using personal artwork on their website without permission. Rich folks are classy.

EDIT: Those items have been removed as of this morning, but the fact remains that the rental company thought that using artwork without asking permission was a perfectly normal thing to do.

12/10/2009 2:13:20 PM

DAMN THE MAN! SAVE THE WILMONT!

12/10/2009 2:14:38 PM

^^http://www.newraleigh.com/articles/archive/live-oak-wilmont/

Here is some documentation of the stolen content if anybody is interested.

12/10/2009 2:38:06 PM

^^^ Everything I've seen in regard to the renovation looks supremely cheap. I'm not surprised they're trying to pay nothing for artwork.

They've got a few ads up on craigslist:
$1295 for a 2br
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/apa/1500578856.html
$1095 for a 2br
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/apa/1500575478.html
$845 for a 1br
http://raleigh.craigslist.org/apa/1500570367.html

The rates are absurd.

12/10/2009 2:43:10 PM