Fayetteville's

old A&T grocery building, vacant for two

years, will soon come to life as an after-hours

youth entertainment center called The Market.

"I've

got a 17-year-old son and he just goes `out' on

weekends," said Taylor Williams of

Fayetteville, a music marketer who is organizing

the teen center along with a group of other

professionals in the area. "What's `out'?

It's just hanging out."

Williams

said he decided something needed to be done.

"The

youth of today are just a mistake away from

changing the rest of their lives," he said.

"We provide for them from preschool to

junior high school and then release them to the

world.

"I

thought as a parent I needed to do something so

there would at least be a place that they could

go that would be smoke-free, alcohol-free, drug

free, with four to six off-duty police officers

there all the time, where we could control the

type music - maybe we could influence them

with a sense of belonging to something,"

said Williams.

He

hopes to open The Market toward the end of this

month, with dancing Friday and Saturday nights.

Part of the activity also will be to produce an

"American Bandstand" style television

show. "We're working on placement," he

said, adding that organizers of the club are

hopeful that the show can be aired profitably.

Once

teens are used to thinking of the club as a place

to spend their time, Williams said he will begin

offering more activities during the week, such as

motivational speakers, mentor programs, antidrug

programs and the like.

"Once

they're coming there on Friday and Saturday, all

we have to do is plug in different things,"

he said.

He

also is working with church youth groups and

plans to offer the club as a meeting hall for

youth groups, he said.

Though

his work background is in marketing, not teen

clubs, the concept is not new to Williams. He

organized a teen club when he was 18 years old,

because nothing like that was available where he

lived, he said.

"I

never thought about it again, until my son turned

17," he said.

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