Take an inside look at the Triangle’s major real estate developments taking shape in 2021
The coronavirus pandemic may have put much of the world on pause last year, but developers didn’t halt both new and existing plans for more urban and suburban development.
Raleigh, Durham, Cary and other parts of the Triangle remain attractive to families, professionals and college students seeking to relocate, ensuring that population growth will follow the density of upcoming developments.
Here is a look at major real estate projects underway in 2021, including mixed-used developments with housing and retail as well as commercial buildings.
Raleigh Union Station, Phase 2
The next phase of the Raleigh Union Station, known as RUSBus, includes a new apartment and hotel tower up to 40 stories high in downtown Raleigh’s Warehouse District.
The tower at 200 S. West St., will be anchored by a 35,000-square-foot GoTriangle bus transit station on the ground level with a 25,000-square-foot retail area.
Design renderings from RUSBus designer Perkins Eastman show walkable plaza areas that wrap around the new bus station with outdoor seating and dining.
The high-rise has a U-shaped design with two 10-story towers facing each other atop a 10-story rectangular building base. One tower atop the building’s base will have 165 residential units across from a second tower with a 260-room hotel. The two towers would have a plaza with amenities between them.
The plans show the towers stacked above the building’s base with a 665-space parking deck in its base center building, and 155 residential units wrapped around it.
10 percent of those residential units will be affordable housing for those earning 80% or less of the area median income.
Construction is planned to begin by May 2022 with a “substantial” completion date of at least July 2025, GoTriangle said.
Seaboard Station
Construction started late last year on the massive $300 million redevelopment of Seaboard Station, which currently houses restaurants and retail.
The shopping center on West Peace Street near downtown Raleigh includes several restaurants and the popular Logan’s garden shop. The D.C.-based Hoffman & Associates firm is developing this project as well as the RUSBus tower.
The redeveloped Seaboard Station will have more than 130,000 square feet of retail and up to 650 new apartment units across mid-rise buildings with communal spaces and plazas, renderings show.
The first phase is slated to be finished in mid-2022, the The N&O reported. A timeline hasn’t been announced for the next two phases. When it’s complete, there will be a hotel, more housing and street-level retail.
Salisbury Square
Raleigh developer Dominion Realty Partners, which brought the FNB Tower to Raleigh’s skyline in 2019, is planning to build a high-rise tower project next to the Duke Energy Center for the Performing Arts in downtown Raleigh.
Site work is in progress for Salisbury Square, which will include towers and mid-rise buildings with housing, hotel, retail, office and parking space.
One tower will have 242 upscale apartments with office and retail space, and the other tower will have 270 apartments with a rooftop pool, according to JDavis Architects, which is working on the project.
Developers propose building two 20-story towers, a six-story hotel with 150 rooms, and a four-story building with 63 units of affordable housing, with an attached parking deck, according to JDavis and plans filed with the city.
Plans call for the creation of the NCAE park for the N.C. Association of Educators between the structures as part of the development agreement. Dominion Realty Partners bought the land from NCAE.
Park City South
Local real estate investor and developer Merge Capital partnered with Kane Realty to bring a new apartment-centered development to the southwestern entrance to downtown Raleigh.
Park City South eventually will have three phases built on 9 acres near Dorothea Dix Park in connection with the Rocky Branch Trail Greenway at 927 S. Saunders St. Plans call for a tower up to 20 stories high.
The first phase of Park City South consists of a 10-story residential building with over 30,000 square feet of ground-level retail space. It’s slated to have 244 one-bedroom, 87 two-bedroom and five three-bedroom units, development plans show.
Merge Capital says they plan to begin construction this year.
865 Morgan apartments
Goodnights Comedy Club will leave its home, where it has been since 1983, and will be replaced by apartments and retail.
Local real estate firm HM Partners filed plans with the City of Raleigh proposing a residential mid-rise of up to seven stories high on the comedy club’s site. The development will be at the corner of 865 W. Morgan St. and 905 Tryon Hill Drive — just off Hillsborough Street near the N.C. State University campus.
The proposed development would have 401 apartment units of one to two bedrooms; two courtyard areas; and around 9,000 square feet of retail space on site and built within the area’s permitted zoning that allows building up to seven stories.
The development is set to be around 439,000 square feet when completed. The Goodnights building and a machinery supply business on the property, representing about 28,000 square feet, will be torn down for the project. Site work will begin this year, the developer said.
The club’s management told The N&O it plans to find a new home.
New developments for North Hills
Kane Realty Corporation announced big plans last year for its flagship Raleigh development. The developer plans to significantly expand the present parking, housing, restaurant, retail and office space at North Hills on an almost 9-acre part of the site where the JC Penney store was vacated.
The expansion plans herald a new 12-story residential high-rise with 287 units, 346,000 square feet of office space in a 10-story tower and a five-story mid-rise.
“It’s about a $350 million project, so it is a large project,” said John Kane, CEO of Kane Realty, in a video about the redevelopment project. “It will take about two years to complete and we’re excited to start it in 2021.”
The luxury units for rent will range from studios to one- to three-bedroom apartments. The One North Hills office tower will be “COVID-designed,” according to its website. Plans call for touchless entry and controlled access points, enhanced air filtration throughout the building, a 6,000-square-foot terrace for outdoor work, touchless elevators for reduced crowds, and ground-floor meeting spaces that limit the number of guests.
The site will feature outdoor dining and 100,000 square feet of ground floor retail and bring Raleigh’s first Restoration Hardware gallery, an upscale home improvement retail company.
Kane Realty also has plans for an ambitious, $1 billion addition to its North Hills development in Raleigh, pitching it as a potential destination for tech-and-life-sciences companies.
Kane is calling it the North Hills Innovation District. It will include an 18-story office tower, a 200-unit apartment complex and a 20,000-square-foot food hall.
Within the larger North Hills office district, the firm started work last year on The Walter, a 35-story residential high-rise with retail space and housing. The 376 luxury units of the Walter Tower will range from 600-square-foot studio apartments to 2,000-square-foot penthouses — 21 of them with one to three bedrooms. The project will include around 6,500 square feet of retail and an integrated parking deck.
American Tobacco Campus expansion
Capitol Broadcasting Co. has big plans to expand the American Tobacco Campus in downtown Durham on the 11 acres next to the site.
CBC, international real estate firm Hines and USAA Real Estate are partnering to expand the campus to build a new 700,000-square-foot mixed-use development. Its specs include a 14-story residential high-rise with 350 units, two office buildings and retail space with potential for a movie theater, restaurants and more.
Renderings show a central plaza area allowing for outdoor dining and activity between the buildings.
The office buildings will be built to what Hines calls its “T3” standards — using “timber, transit and technology” to create a different and modern look for office buildings.
It’s the first time Hines will build these in the Triangle, having developed similar office buildings in a few other U.S. metros like Minneapolis and Atlanta, according to its website.
The first phase will include residential and office space on 8 acres of the site. Construction is slated to begin in late 2021 or early 2022, developers said.
Raleigh Iron Works
This mixed-use redevelopment project will incorporate the historic Peden Steel mills and warehouses in its structure. The project was announced last year and began construction this month at 2200 Atlantic Ave., near Raleigh’s Mordecai and Five Points neighborhoods.
Raleigh-based developer Grubb Ventures and design firm Jamestown call it Raleigh Iron Works, a large multi-phase project. The first phase will include nearly 500,000 square feet of office space, over 90,000 square feet of retail space and a 220-unit, seven-story luxury apartment building.
The first phase will renovate the existing buildings and construct the first apartments. The offices will feature original architectural details and finishes, the firms said.
The office, retail, and residential components are expected to be ready in mid-2022.
East End Market
East End Market is an upcoming development centered on restaurants and shopping, mixed with office buildings and apartments. It’s being built along Wake Forest and East Whitaker Mill roads near Mordecai and Five Points neighborhoods, the same area as the upcoming Raleigh Iron Works development.
A historic warehouse on the site at 2020 Progress Court will be redeveloped into the 11-acre site of the project. It’s location is next to Dock 1053, an office and retail complex made up of redeveloped industrial space, similar to the vision for East End Market.
In all, plans call for 500 multifamily units and seven buildings comprising 394,000 square feet with five and seven-story buildings in the site’s center. Some buildings may be towers as high as 15 stories, according to plans filed with Raleigh’s planning department.
The first phase of the project will have over 60,000 square feet of commercial and office space. Construction began on this phase last year and is slated to be finished by this summer, according to its Raleigh-based developers SLI Capital and Atlas Stark.
The project’s website describes it as being inspired by retail developments that include the Atherton Mill retail hub in Charlotte.
Broadstone Oak City
The abandoned Capital Plaza Hotel, an eyesore on Capital Boulevard for decades, faces a long-awaited future as new apartments.
Titled Broadstone Oak City, it will become four apartment buildings with 335 apartment units across them, according to Pickett Prouse, a real estate firm involved in the site’s sale to the developer, Alliance Residential Company.
The company said the hotel and its 13-acre site will be torn down and turned into the new apartment complex with parking, amenities and the construction of a new public street. It will be completed in late 2022, developers say.
Alliance Residential Co. had a similar project with an abandoned Durham hotel, redeveloping it into the Cortland Bull City apartment development.
Fenton
The 69-acre shopping, living and entertainment development in Cary named Fenton will have luxury apartments and will be anchored by a Wegmans grocery store. The mixed-use site near I-40 at Cary Towne Boulevard is near the now-shuttered Cary Towne Center and aims to become a new commercial attraction.
Its first phase will be ready by the end of this year and will debut a six-story building with 355 apartments, as well as a boutique hotel with 186 rooms. The phase will also feature 348,000 square feet of retail and 170,000 square feet of office space.
Fenton’s first wave will include several anticipated restaurants and cocktail spots. Raleigh cocktail bar Dram & Draught announced recently it will open a new location in Cary, joining Crawford Brothers Steakhouse and M Sushi as notable local additions to the site.
Atlanta celebrity chef Ford Fry will open a new location of his Tex-Mex restaurant group Superica, which has locations in Charlotte. Italian restaurant Colletta, part of the Charleston-based Indigo Road Hospitality Group, which opened O-Ku Sushi and Oak Steakhouse in Raleigh, will also open in Fenton, The N&O reported previously.
The Canopy will be a six-story building of 355 luxury apartments within the development, ranging from studios to three-bedroom units and four loft-style units, according to a press release.
It is being built by Hines, an international real estate investor, and Columbia Development, a South Carolina developer, with an expected completion of the full site in 2022.
GeerHouse
The owner of Motorco Music Hall in Durham has plans to redevelop it into GeerHouse, a 14-story apartment tower and mixed-use commercial center. The popular music venue won’t be going anywhere, however.
Washington, D.C., developer Four Points is behind this project in the entertainment district of West Geer Street next to Durham’s Central Park. Four Points is part of GeerHouse Partners, a partnership between the land’s longtime owners, which includes the project’s architect Alexandros Washburn and the owners of the decades-old Acme Plumbing Co. on the property.
The 2.3-acre project will total 480,000 square feet and will have 328 units in addition to around 23,500 square feet of retail and entertainment space including the Motorco venue, according to the latest project details, which have been updated from its initial plans last year.
The development will have two apartment towers built in two phases — one 14 stories and the other either six or seven stories high. The first phase proposes the shorter tower with 220 apartments, parking and space for retail or restaurants.
Work for the project is slated to begin later this year.
The Roxboro at Venable
The Venable Center, a commercial office complex, from Trinity Capital Advisors and SLI Capital will add a fourth building to go with the three fully-leased former tobacco buildings in Durham.
The new 8-story office and life sciences building called The Roxboro will have 200,000 square feet of space and is aiming for completion by either the end of 2021 or early 2022, developers told The N&O.
The Roxboro, situated east of the Durham Bulls Athletic Park at 464 E. Pettigrew St., will include additional construction for around 220 apartments, but they aren’t expected to be completed until the spring of 2022.
This project will feature a rooftop lounge as well as a conference center. The eight-story building will be constructed on a parcel of land that is adjacent to the Venable Center’s parking lot.
Its Durham-based architects Duda|Paine say the design is meant to respect the area’s historic context.
Olde Towne
Apex-based developer The Halle Building Group has plans for a massive housing subdivision on over 500 acres in southeast Raleigh — a mostly vacant site known as Olde Towne.
The Halle Building Group filed plans over a year ago for an apartment complex consisting of 12 three-story buildings to be built across 45 acres. More recently, they submitted plans with the city for building an additional 511 townhomes on about 85 acres of the land.
The land, which has different owners in some portions, was purchased over a decade ago and was envisioned as a golf course until plans were abandoned due to the Great Recession.
The land is zoned for building up to 1,700 housing units.
EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this story included the incorrect percentage of affordable housing in the Raleigh Union Station development. Ten percent of the project’s housing units will be affordable within 80% of the area’s median income.
This story was originally published March 4, 2021 at 6:15 AM.
