Raleigh’s Hillsborough Street is growing. A new report shows its upward trend
The college campus thoroughfare of Hillsborough Street that runs from the I-440 Beltline to downtown Raleigh is seeing change and an upward trend of economic growth.
The growth in the last two quarters of 2019 is documented in a semiannual report released this week by the Hillsborough Street Community Service Corporation, also known by Live It Up! Hillsborough Street, the not-for-profit organization created by the city and North Carolina State University to promote economic growth in the area.
The growth is hard to miss with the street’s array of new businesses as well large student housing projects under construction. According to the Live It Up! report, retail vacancy is just 1.8% and three business closings in the past year were more than offset by seven opening.
The restaurants and retail that line the street and primarily serve students saw an all-time high of $51.7 million in sales in 2019, a gross increase of $4.2 million, or the equivalent an extra month of sales, the report says.
The recorded food and beverage sales were higher each month in 2019 than a year prior and higher than a three-year average, including a record of October sales of $4.81 million.
“The last decade has been very good to Hillsborough Street,” said Jeff Murison, president of Live It Up! Hillsborough Street. “This is probably the most positive we’ve seen it in a number of years. The market conditions are excellent.”
Murison says there’s a “pipeline” of development projects that will bring new merchants and buildings to the street for the next two to three years.
The greater Hillsborough St. area has 1.2 million square feet of planned or under-construction projects, including two large student housing develpments set to open by the fall semester: the 246,350-square-foot, 142-unit The Uncommon and the 509,000-square-foot, 234-unit The Standard at Raleigh.
These complexes are being built near the Stanhope student and retail complex from Kane Realty that opened in 2015. The Logan & Chamberlain student apartment buildings with 123 units opened last fall off of Hillsborough Street.
According to the report, nine major projects will add a total of 1,409 bedrooms to the greater area, which includes parts of Park and Ashe avenues and Oberlin Road.
New businesses on the block
Some of the new faces on the street include fast-casual restaurants like Rush Bowls, Mezeh Mediterranean Grill, Moge Tee and Cha House.
“It’s been good here,” says Sandy Zhang, a manager at Moge Tee, a Chinese boba tea franchise originally from China.. A location opened in December on Hillsborough Street after Zhang’s aunt, the franchise owner, decided that the N.C. State campus area was the best location in the state along with the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
“Boba tea has a college student vibe. It’s getting popular,” Zhang said.
Up the street is Cha House, a newly opened Chapel Hill-based boba tea franchise that expanded its business from UNC’s campus corridor to NC State’s.
“We absolutely love being here,” said Jennifer Schultz, the co-owner of the franchise. “We actually looked at couple other locations but this was, by far, our top priority. We felt that the product and the customer base that we have and the environment really just suited for this.”
Schultz said that hosting benefit nights for different N.C. State campus groups has helped grow their customer base since their official opening on Jan. 6.
A New York City investment firm will also contribute to the street’s growth. It purchased Hillsborough Street properties in January with plans to redevelop it into potential student housing in the next couple of years, The News & Observer previously reported.
This story was originally published February 13, 2020 at 6:25 AM.
