Developers reveal more on an upcoming billion-dollar development in midtown Raleigh
The beginnings of site work can be seen in the wooded area behind the office building housing Raleigh-based Dewitt Carolinas, which will begin building one of the city’s biggest commercial developments next year.
The developers recently offered a closer look at the $1 billion 40-acre Midtown Exchange commercial and residential project’s first and biggest installment in the city’s midtown area.
MTX One is the first of a pair of sleek 12-story towers that will be linked by a skybridge and will overlook St. Albans and Benson drives. Construction on the first tower will start in the first half of 2021, developers said.
The first tower will offer 330,000 square feet of office space, 19,000 square feet of retail and 5,000 square feet of conference and meeting space.
Plans for the rest of the development include more office and residential high-rises, a hotel, a convention center, retail and restaurant space. Housing construction is slated to include 300 senior apartment units and 1,275 apartment, condo and townhome units.
“Obviously 333,000 square feet is a big project, so it will be phase one, the first tower,” Todd Saieed, Dewitt Carolinas CEO, told The News & Observer. “Depending on office demand, we’ll determine when the next tower gets built and when that tower gets built, we will have the addition of the skybridge to connect the two buildings.”
The mixed-use development, first announced a year ago, will feature a central four-acre park surrounded by urban development that will be integrated into the site’s green space.
“We’re paying a lot of attention and making a big investment to the Midtown park that will be in the center of this,” said Saieed. “That’s a big key feature that will differentiate this from other mixed-use developments in Raleigh.”
Atlanta-based architect Rule Joy Trammell + Rubio is designing the development. The firm has experience as a main designer of several mixed-use and high-rise residential buildings in Atlanta.
Dewitt Carolinas is optimistic about the future office real estate market and feels good about finding tenants amid the corporate relocation that has been active in North Carolina, he said.
A few miles down the I-440 corridor, Kane Realty Corp.’s North Hills district will be neighbored by Midtown Exchange, presenting competition in the commercial real estate market in the future.
Kane Realty is currently working on a 35-story commercial high-rise and a residential and retail expansion to the existing North Hills shopping center, The N&O reported previously.
“There will be competition,” said Saieed. “But we look at it as a whole. Collectively, we may be competitors, but we also look at ourselves as co-developers who work together to develop what could be the nicest area in Raleigh.”
The developers estimate that the first tower will be finished by the end of 2022 as part of a 10-year construction process.
