Historic buildings in Downtown Wilmington: Maintenance challenges and potential solutions

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Some downtown buildings have been around since the 18th century.

While these historic structures contribute to the Port City’s unique look, some business owners have encountered issues with the aging buildings.

Memory Lane Comics, co-owned by Jacob Motsinger, has been a part of downtown for 8 years and loves their location.

However, when a piece of their building fell off, they had to scramble to address the issue.

Motsinger explained, “The street was closed down for 4 months maybe, scaffolding covering our walkways. We couldn’t use our front door; we were using our side door and had to rearrange the whole store to make this work.”

Since Memory Lane Comics does not own the space it occupies, they worked together with the building’s landlord to fix the issues.

Their neighbors at Brand Engine faced an even more severe problem, which ultimately forced them to move out.

Motsinger, wonders if the city could do more to prevent such issues: “Maybe a little more general upkeep and inspections could’ve prevented that stuff because you could see that there was going to be a problem with their building at some point.”

Further down the road, at The Eagles Dare, owner Joe Apkarian is dealing with his own building troubles.

He is working with his landlord to repair a façade that fell onto the street in front of his restaurant, Taco Baby.

Apkarian noted, “I know he is trying to get the façade done. It’s been months now since March, so it’s just trying to navigate and get approval because, again, there are historic requirements and all these other requirements before they can put something up…”

He suggests that a city incentive might help maintain these historic buildings:

“The city needs to take action but in the right form. Are they going to force landlords to fix their buildings? Is there any incentive there? Because where’s the incentive for them? Otherwise, the landlord is just going to look at this business owner and be like, ‘Cool, you have to do this,'” said Apkarian.

We have reached out to the City of Wilmington for comment.

In a statement, they said, “Owners are responsible for maintaining their buildings. If a tenant is having an issue with building maintenance and the owner is not making repairs, please contact City Code Enforcement with detailed information.”

However nothing has been released on whether incentivizing landlords could be a policy added in the near future.