downtown
Growth mindset
L
eonardo “Leo” Williams, a force in our city’s culinary and political scenes, was elected mayor in 2023. He and his wife, Zweli Williams, co-founded Zimbabwean restaurant Zweli’s Kitchen & Restaurant in 2018 and launched Zweli’s Ekhaya, a tapas restaurant inspired by Bantu flavors, in the heart of the American Tobacco Campus in 2023. Before stepping into the mayor’s office, Leo served on the Durham City Council for Ward 3, where he was an advocate for local businesses and community growth. We sat down with him to discuss the challenges and opportunities facing downtown businesses and how community engagement can help maintain Durham’s vibrant spirit.*
How do you plan to balance the significant expansion in Durham while still maintaining our city’s distinctive features? Durham is a midsize, major-status city with a unique character in that most of our businesses downtown are locally owned. You’ll find that in small towns but not cities our size. We’ve only got [a few] chain restaurants downtown, and I want to keep it that way. We lost about 15 businesses total this year, but we’ve gained about 23 or 25 in restaurants or retail storefronts. What we don’t want is empty storefronts, because then developers will start looking at more regional and then national chains. Chains like Cheesecake Factory at Southpoint 28
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Mayor Leonardo Williams discusses his strategies for managing progress while preserving our cityʼs unique character
durhammag.com
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can be great economic anchors, but downtown, I’d personally rather have local spots. The key to maintaining our local character is intentionality. I need residents to get out and support local businesses – shop and eat locally. We can come up with all types of reasons why we think businesses are struggling, but at the end of the day, we need people spending money here. Please choose Durham over Amazon, and dine out rather than using UberEats or DoorDash. These services promote convenience, but what they’re also doing is creating distance between you and your neighbors. We need to reconnect as a community. Regarding plans, we are desperately in need of more hotels. We’re desperately in need of a larger convention center. We need a sports facility, too. I’m currently working with a few landowners downtown to reimagine existing infrastructure, including aerospace. We saw with the Carolina Theatre and DPAC being closed [for building renovations] this summer, businesses really suffered without that foot traffic. It also showed me, in regards to economic data, how sales were down significantly. We can’t rely on a city to thrive solely on local residents. You’ve got to have visitors as well. And we need more reasons for visitors to come to Durham.