Caroline McMillan
Courtesy of Carrboro Commons

You might call Brian Russell a “Renaissance man” of the digital world.

As a former multimedia designer, developer, consultant and blogger, Russell is used to haunting coffee shops and working alone.

Come mid-October, you’ll find him in Carrboro, laptop in hand, but now he won’t be by himself. Rather, he’ll be brewing a pot of coffee and communing with a new set of coworkers, ranging from freelance writers and editors to multimedia programmers and professional bloggers.
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Seagrove Pottery, a gallery of the works of Seagrove, NC potters, recently opened a location at 206 E. Main St. in Carrboro.

Seagrove, located south of Asheboro, has been an important center of pottery for more than 200 years and is the largest community of potters in the United States.

The gallery also has locations in Seagrove and in Raleigh’s Cameron Village.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce is conducting a survey of businesses to gauge changing expectations of the chamber as the economic climate changes.
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The Recovery Room, a new restaurant, café and bar, opens this week in the former Hector’s space on Henderson Street in Chapel Hill.
The Recovery Room will serve local coffee in the morning, lunch in the afternoon, dinner in the evening and late-night food after 10 p.m., when it becomes a bar until 2 a.m.

The Recovery Room is located at 108 Henderson St. between Rosemary and Franklin streets.

The Rare Earth Bead Shop recently opened on West Main Street. The store offers a selection of gemstone beads, as well as silver findings, pearls, Swarovski crystal, Czech crystal, jewelry and tools. In addition, the store offers free classes to the public and provides services such as stringing, crimping and wire wrapping.

Previously located only in Durham, Rare Earth Beads now has an additional location at 210 W. Main St.

Brittany Jackson
Courtesy of the Carrboro Commons

The owners of downtown Carrboro’s The Merch don’t just stick to screen-printing and design. But what they do stick to influences their business, from their artistic backgrounds to playing in bands to skateboarding.
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Andrew and Vanessa Neal have moved their Chapel Hill Comics store, but not far. The new store is at 316 West Franklin — the former home of Paint the Earth — just seven doors down from their old place.
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Downturn hits the charts throughout Orange County

Kirk Ross
Staff Writer

Closer ties with UNC and RTP, more coordination in recruiting between local governments, setting up an economic incentive program and leveraging a new Orange County Airport were among the ideas discussed Tuesday at an Orange County development briefing at UNC’s Friday Center.

One by one, planners from Carrboro, Chapel Hill, Orange County and Hillsborough spelled out in detail what the 150 or so business leaders assembled already knew or suspected: Commercial and residential construction is down considerably from heights hit in 2000.
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The Chapel Hill Downtown Partnership will hold “Coffee with the Partnership” events on Tuesday from 9 to 10 a.m. and 5 to 6 p.m. at the University Presbyterian Church on Henderson Street.
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The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce will host several events throughout the month of October. Some of these include:
-the Nonprofit Roundtable, from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Oct. 8 at the chamber office;
-Women’s Executive Series, from 7:30 to 9:30 a.m. Oct. 14 at the Governors Club;
-the Retail Roundtable, at 7 a.m. Oct. 21 at the chamber office;
-the Women’s Roundtable, at 8 a.m. Oct. 28 at the chamber office.
For more information, visit www.carolinachamber.org.

The Chapel Hill-Carrboro Chamber of Commerce will hold a Small Business Roundtable on Oct. 1 from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the chamber office on South Estes Drive in Chapel Hill.

Benjamin Quinn, a certified coach with ActionCOACH Business Coaching, will discuss building a business during an economic downturn. The roundtable is intended to provide useful and actionable information.
The event is free, but seating is limited. To attend the roundtable, RSVP to Whitney Woodyard at wwoodyard@carolinachamber.org by Friday with your name, the name of your company and the names of any others who will attend with you.

F&F Automotive looks ready to reopen with a sleek new exterior and roof. The storage trailer was towed away on Tuesday, stopping traffic on Weaver Street. The office looks just about ready to be occupied and several cars under repair wait in the bay. Proprietor Cleve Fogleman told the Citizen in June that he hoped to reopen in September.

A fire destroyed much of the building last November. The repair shop has been on Weaver Street since 1972.

Photo by Robert Dickson

By Susan Dickson
Staff Writer

Over the past year, the doctors from Carrboro Pediatrics and Internal Medicine have patiently waited to move into their new building as state contractors cleaned up potentially harmful chemicals.

But the cleanup is now complete, and the doctors – who have practiced at several locations throughout Carrboro over the past 15 years – will move into their new offices in March or April of next year.

The building at 127 Fidelity Street was home to dry-cleaning businesses – most recently Hangers Cleaners – for a number of years before Carrboro Pediatrics and Internal Medicine bought the building last fall. Because chemicals used in the dry-cleaning process are linked to some cancers, the doctors had the site tested before refurbishing the building and found contamination from perchloroethylene, a dry-cleaning solvent.

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To avaoid parking hassles around the holiday shopping season at University Mall, the Town of Chapel Hill and UNC have selected alternate sites for the park & ride shuttle bus service for the December 22 UC-Santa Barbara basketball game and for the January 12 game against NC State.

Those interested in using the game shuttle are asked to use the park & ride lots at UNC’s Friday Center and Jones Ferry Road in Carrboro or board the game bus departing from the Carolina Coffee Shop on Franklin Street in downtown Chapel Hill.  There will also be a temporary park & ride location at the Highway 54 lot also at the Friday Center.

Damon Forney, who has over 25 years of experience in the water resources and environmental protection fields, has begun work as OWASA’s new Wastewater Treatment and Biosolids Recycling Manager.

Forney will manage operations and a staff of 14 employees at OWASA’s Mason Farm Wastewater Treatment Plant (WWTP) on Old Mason Farm Road in southeast Chapel Hill.

The WWTP can treat about eight million gallons a day of wastewater from the Carrboro-Chapel Hill community. OWASA also recycles about 16 million gallons of biosolids (treated solids separated from wastewater) annually.

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