In an area that takes up three fourths of a square mile and is only 12 by 14 blocks wide, Durham's business leaders are still hoping for a revival of sorts.

"Essentially what has happened is almost all the historic buildings have either been purchased and renovated or have been purchased and are about to undergo renovation," said Bill Kalkhof, President of Downtown Durham, Inc. "The growth curve that we've been on -- it'll flatten out here because the economy -- but we figure it'll pick up again."

Kalkhof said the 2000 Master Plan called for a billion dollars worth of investment in the downtown area during the following 20 years. Turns out, seven years into it, they realized they already had a billion. About $750 came from private investment, about $250 from public projects.

"We've had well over three million square feet of formally empty space has been purchased and renovated since 1994," Kalkhof said.

Millions of the investments are coming from Greenfire Development. The company's re-development projects downtown is set to include an investment of about $295 million. It'll create 1,300 jobs at full build out and 430 new housing units.

"The center of the city now is the last piece in connecting the revitalization of downtown Durham," said Carl Webb, Partner with Greenfire Development.

So developers are hoping that the economy will turn around somewhere near the middle part of next year.

"The economic slump as impacted everybody," Webb said. "It has impacted every aspect of the business world and given that the majority of how we operate is based on our ability to raise capital ... for the need of projects that we're working on."

Kalkhof said he doesn't think it will create a problem for Durham's long-term goals in developing its downtown.

"I think generally what we're seeing in downtown is I don't see any of the deals being killed by the economy. What I do think will happen is they'll be delayed," he said. "Is that delay going to be one quarter, two quarters...I don't know. But I would speculate that projects that we had hoped would begin in the first quarter of '09 probably won't start until the final quarter of '09 or perhaps the first quarter of 2010."

Some entrepreneurs aren't waiting. Jim Anile and his wife hope to open "Revolution" restaurant on Main Street within the next few weeks.

"I feel like over the next five to ten years, really, this will be the destination area," he said. "I don't think it's as big of gamble because there's so many parts focused on this area."

The restaurant that will feature a split between a bar-area and a fancy white tablecloth dining area is somewhat of a new start for Anile. He's been a chef in four and five star restaurants these last years.

"I just really felt like we would be on the ground floor of all of that development," he said. "Durham's a great food town anyway."

Kalkhof thinks that growth will be part of a larger trend downtown during the next five to ten years.

"We believe there will be at least an addition of 1.5 million square feet of office space," he said. "We'll see at least 2,000 more residential units ... which would mean a growth about 3,000 residents."