Arthur and Anya Gordon, the founders and former owners of the iconic West Morgan Street restaurant Irregardless Café, are pursuing a new venture: an affordable, multi-generational housing development connected to their community garden in southwest Raleigh.
The Gordons own about 2.5 acres located across the street from Athens Drive Magnet High School that’s currently home to their Well Fed Community Garden. There, they work with a local farmer to grow vegetables, fruits, and herbs, raise chickens, and keep bees. They bought the land at a foreclosure sale in 2012 intending to grow fresh produce for Irregardless, Arthur says, and did so for years. Since selling the restaurant in 2020, they’ve been thinking about other purposes the garden property could serve.
The couple envision a three-story apartment building with older residents living on the first floor, families on the second, and dormitory-style or cohousing on the third. A street-level bodega could sell pre-made meals and fresh produce to neighbors and nearby high schoolers. Residents would be responsible for cultivating the garden, which would continue to exist on a smaller footprint.
“The idea is, the two big issues that seem to be hurting our culture right now are affordable housing and mental health,” Arthur Gordon says. “What I’m pushing for is that the people who end up living on the property have to do something with the garden. They can water the flowers, they can turn the compost…and in return, they get a reduced rent.”
Standing between the Gordons and their dream of communal urban living and agriculture is Raleigh’s Unified Development Ordinance, which currently permits only low-scale development of houses or duplexes on their property. The Gordons are petitioning the Raleigh Planning Commission to rezone the land to allow for residential mixed-use development, which would enable them to build a three-story apartment building with 67 units and retail space on the ground floor.
At the planning commission’s March 11 meeting, Arthur invoked his track record of bringing out-of-the-box ideas like Irregardless to life in Raleigh.
“Nothing else like [this proposal] exists” in Raleigh, he acknowledged, “but there were no non-smoking vegetarian restaurants 50 years ago as well, and today it’s considered part of the establishment.”
The commissioners, along with a few neighbors who spoke in opposition to the Gordons’ request at the meeting, seemed most concerned about the wide range of retail uses permitted by residential mixed-use zoning.
“This land could be…sold to a developer and we could wind up with a vape shop or a convenience store,” said one neighbor who spoke in opposition, suggesting that the land should be used as the new location of the Athens Drive Community Library instead.
Some neighbors also expressed worries about the stormwater implications of redeveloping the Gordons’ property, since the neighborhood’s stormwater system is already “at capacity.” But Arthur says the development he’s proposing would capture stormwater rather than exacerbating runoff.
“There’s going to continue to be a farm on the property, so we want the water,” he says. “We don’t want to make it impervious and have it run off. We want to put in retaining ponds.”
The planning commission seemed open to the Gordons’ idea but asked Arthur to come back on April 8 with more conditions attached to the rezoning request—addressing things like height, noise, and lighting restrictions and prohibitions on certain commercial uses.
If the Gordons’ proposal receives approval from the planning commission and then the city council, Arthur says their next step would be to sell the property to a nonprofit developer who agrees to develop it according to their specifications. He and Anya are still looking for the right partner.
“We have talked to a number of nonprofits…who said to us, ‘Go through the process, see if you can get this rezoned, and if you can, then come back and talk to us,’” Arthur told the planning commission.
The couple is ready and willing to plow through layers of bureaucracy and negotiation to get this project done the right way, Arthur says: “If you wait long enough, anything can happen.”
At 75, the chemistry and philosophy double major-turned chef-turned part-time high school culinary teacher is eccentric and serene. Over coffee, he regales me with stories from his restaurant days, reflections on the meaning of dreams, and instructions for preparing egg salad. His raison d’être as a business owner and human being, he explains, is creating community in a world that increasingly prioritizes isolation and greed.
The redevelopment plan might evolve, he says. He and Anya aren’t categorically opposed to the idea of putting a library on the property, if they determine that to be its “higher purpose.” Their primary goal is to create something that fosters healthy connection.
“This is more than a rezoning,” Arthur says.
Support independent local journalism. Join the INDY Press Club to help us keep fearless watchdog reporting and essential arts and culture coverage viable in the Triangle.
Chloe Courtney Bohl is a corps member for Report for America. Reach her at chloe@indyweek.com. Comment on this story at backtalk@indyweek.com.