Durham’s shuttered Northgate Mall will be transformed this year. Here are the plans.
Northgate Mall, a fixture north of downtown Durham since the 1960s, will undergo a dramatic transformation this year into a mixed-use development, CBRE Retail Services said Tuesday.
Northwood Investors and their subsidiary companies will bring new retail, office and residences to the 55-acre site on Club Boulevard, CBRE Retail Services said in a release.
Plans call for a pedestrian-friendly center that includes outdoor patios and space for public plazas and green space, the release said. The site is projected to include over a million square feet of retail, office, residential, restaurant and life science facility space.
“The project, which will begin this year, is ideally positioned among established Durham neighborhoods and has tremendous interstate access and visibility,” CBRE said in a news release.
Northwood Investors bought Northgate Mall in 2018 for $34.5 million, after the mall was in danger of going into foreclosure. The property includes the Northgate Stadium 10 movie theater.
The investment firm kept it afloat until it finally closed last May, after facing struggles during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Northwood Investors didn’t respond to The News & Observer’s phone message or email for additional details. Northwood has built several mixed-use developments in the Triangle through its Northwood Ravin subsidiary, The N&O previously reported.
Traditional malls disappearing
Traditional malls have been dying across the United States, and developers have sought to redevelop them into housing complexes, office and retail space.
Cary Towne Center, for example, has been in decline in recent years, with several proposals for redevelopment, including an Ikea, not coming to fruition.
But on Jan. 3, Cary-based Epic Games announced it would buy the struggling mall to develop it into company headquarters.
Greg MacKinnon, research director at the Pension Real Estate Association, said last year that mixed-use sites will replace malls in the future. He addressed a panel on the retail industry during COVID-19, hosted by the University of North Carolina.
“Because of the shakeout of retail due to COVID, you’re going to see in the long term that trend really take off,” MacKinnon said. “The traditional style of shopping malls ... that model is going to be dead.”
Neighborhood response
The mall property is next to Walltown, a historically Black and working class neighborhood in Durham.
Northwood hosted several community engagement meetings to seek input in redeveloping the large property. For the past two years, Walltown residents have expressed concerns with Northwood, Durham City Council and Duke University about gentrification and how the project might increase property values and housing costs on residents.
At-Large Durham city councilman Charlie Reese told The N&O that the developers were operating within the existing zoning permissions and did not need to request development approval from the City Council.
The Walltown Community Association has organized meetings around the community’s response to the imminent redevelopment of Northgate.
The association has sought input from over 200 residents in the nearby community through canvassing, surveys and gatherings. Through the help of Dataworks NC, a nonprofit, they have facilitated focus groups and gathered the data from their neighborhood survey.
Of surveyed residents, 62% have lived in Walltown over 10 years, 24% for over 30 years and 5% for multiple generations.
“Northwood owns the majority of the property with Duke University in ownership of the old Macy’s department store. The Walltown Community Association is aware that these changes will have significant impacts on our community,” the organization said in an announcement. “Therefore, we have been proactively listening to residents about their concerns and vision for what is possible at Northgate.”
Brandon Williams, a member of the association, asked the Durham City Council in a December meeting for their assistance in negotiating the development process with Northwood to include the surveyed community’s desire for affordable retail, grocery and housing in the project.
“This is a multi-racial, multi-generational, multi-class, all-volunteer effort rooted in generations of Black working-class families in Walltown who, in the face of structural racism, have embodied a spirit of self-determination and resilience,” said Williams in written comments to the council. “Over the last two years, we have developed a vision based on the hopes, desires and experiences of Walltown residents, centering the people who have been and will continue to be most impacted by gentrification in the geographic area surrounding Northgate Mall.”
EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this story included information on a Feb. 17 meeting by the Walltown Community Association in the Walltown Park Recreational Center. The correct event was held virtually this month on Jan. 16 and was not held in person.
This story was originally published January 14, 2021 at 3:57 PM.
