Chamber will need a new home

Opinion

June 6, 2008

W. TERRY SMITH The Daily Southerner Fri Jun 06, 2008, 11:04 AM EDT

When Sally Davis said she would be in town for the Cantaloupe Festival later this month, I did not have the heart to tell her there were no cantaloupes.

Davis is the incoming president of the Tarboro Edgecombe Chamber of Commerce. She’s excited and enthused about the possibilities as only a Tarboro native could be.

“We always say that Tarboro is the center of the universe,” she said.

Last year’s inaugural Eastern Carolina Cantaloupe Festival attracted an appreciative crowd downtown and, thanks to some outstanding sponsors, raised about $6,200 for the Chamber.

Revenue will be more important than ever for the Chamber this year. For the last five years, the Chamber has been paying $1 a year in rent and bringing in about $28,000 annually in rental income.

That’s right; RBC Bank (formerly RBC Centura) let the Chamber use the old branch bank building RBC inherited when it acquired Triangle Bank in 2000. RBC already had a branch bank building in town (and still does).

Terms of the agreement that went into effect June 1, 2003, state the Chamber could use the 5,200 square foot building at the corner of Saint James and Main streets – an ideal location in the middle of downtown – for $1 a year until Dec. 31, 2008.

Dec. 31 is the date RBC’s lease runs out with First State Investors in Pennsylvania. Until then, RBC pays the lease, taxes and insurance, and maintains the building’s exterior, including the parking lot.

The agreement stated the Chamber could rent out office space, if it desired, to start-up businesses, business coming into the area.

Suddenlink (formerly Cox cable) was allowed because its location seemed to provide customer convenience in the community.

I do not know how a real estate firm or anyone else got to be renters, but renting office space, parking spaces and the dumpster brought in $27,925 last year.

“The Chamber had sole discretionary use of the building,” RBC’s manager of real estate services and facilities said. “We don’t monitor it. It was a donation to Tarboro and Edgecombe County.”

Maxie Coker, RBC’s regional manager for personal and business banking in northeastern North Carolina, was manager of the RBC Centura branch bank in Tarboro when the agreement came about.

He initiated the conversation about the chamber using the building.

“It was a way to give back to the community,” said Coker, a Tarboro native.

Indeed, it was a generous gift.

Cantaloupes? Some folks are working on that.

And let’s hope some folks are working on finding the chamber a new headquarters downtown.

Full disclosure: My wife Jean works for RBC Bank but not in the real estate division.

W. Terry Smith is editor of The Daily Southerner.

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