Cedar Street Is Hot

With the building of the new First Horizon Stadium in Greensboro, real estate in the Cedar Street neighborhood, which is a couple of blocks away, has suddenly gotten hot.

An historic, Art-Deco style apartment building was demolished recently; the owner is apparently land-banking the property, waiting for prices to rise.

One investor recently asked for, and got, permission to demolish a couple of historic houses in the neighborhood, to be replaced with office space.

Another developer just received permission to build upscale townhouses nearby.

And the city of Greensboro has started working on a neighborhood plan to guide development in the area.

Last night, a notorious, poorly-maintained apartment complex on Cedar Street burned. In the words of Paris Hilton: that's hot.

The News & Record has a story and photos. I stopped by this morning on my way to work (parking my red scooter next to the cop's Harley, much to the cop's amusement) and took some photos of the aftermath:







I'm reminded (classical reference alert!) of the great fire in Rome in the year 64 A.D., which destroyed acres of dilapidated housing in the center city. The emperor Nero took the opportunity (some said he caused the fire, but he blamed it on the Christians) to clear the area and build his Domus Aurea (Golden House).

Conspiracy theorists, draw historic parallels at will.