Friday, March 6, 2015
On Wednesday of this week, site plans were filed by engineering firm Rivers & Associates for a new Sheetz in North Raleigh on Louisburg Road.
If it wasn’t for Wawa, Sheetz would easily be the best convenience store chain of all time
According to their web site, Rivers has “provided the surveying, design, engineering, landscape architecture and construction administration for multiple locations of Sheetz Convenience Restaurants & Stores with gas stations.” Good for them!
No seriously, they do everything from stormwater management to site lay, out and landscaping, which is no small task considering the utility requirements of a new convenience store/gas station.
Although Sheetz has encountered neighborhood opposition when moving into certain areas of the city, this reporter is fortunate enough to live within ten minutes of two of them, and is very thankful for that fact. I mean, if you want to oppose a giant grocery store in your back yard, that makes sense. But a Sheetz? Have they not seen their smoothie menu?
Site plans for a new shopping center on Capital Boulevard were also filed this week, by Florida firm PHDevelopment, which owns and manages a number of properties in the area, including 6201 Glenwood, which was once home to Fat Daddy’s burgers and is now occupied by a Panera Bread.
According to county records, PHDevelopment purchased the property at 5501 Capital Boulevard, currently a car dealership, from Charlotte’s Muskgrave Properties in December 2014 for $3.1 million. The site plan is being handled by the Curry Engineering Group, and calls for a 19,426 square-foot space.
Capital Boulevard has more than its fair share of strip-malls (and less than its share of strip clubs, now that the Foxy Lady is gone), so this project definitely isn’t as exciting as a new Sheetz, but a retail outlet is only as good as its tenants, so we’ll keep an eye out for who PHDevelopment might bring in.
Wake County
5501 Capital Boulevard
Thursday, March 5, 2015
The two largest single-permit jobs of last week were both for grocery stores – Food Lions to be exact.
There’s been a recent wave of Food Lion renovations, as we’ve reported on before. This generally happens with chain stores – if one of them is getting a new look, all of them are getting a new look. Unless that company is Radio Shack. In which case a handful of stores will get a new look, and the rest will be left to rot.
Wake County
The Food Lion at Six Forks Station
The first of the two Food Lions recently permitted is located in the Six Forks Station shopping center in north Raleigh. Built in 1989, the center has seen a number of changes in its 25+ years. Its former tenants include defunct chains such as Borders Books & Music and Waccamaw Home Superstore, and its current and remaining tenants have undergone a number of renovations over the years.
The Food Lion job is listed on the permit at $470,000 and will be handled by Invision General Contractors.
Invision will also be handling the other Food Lion job permitted last week, which is located at the Raleigh Boulevard Plaza. Incidentally, this plaza was also built in 1989, although it never attracted the kind of bigger national chains that Six Forks Plaza has managed to do.
Wake County
The Food Lion at Raleigh Boulevard Plaza
Nonetheless, the job at Raleigh Boulevard will actually be more expensive than the one at Six Forks: $720,000.
Wednesday, March 4, 2015
On Monday, we looked at the start of construction on a new apartment complex near Cameron Village, the Six Sixteen. Of course, this is just one of countless new multifamily units we’ve covered in this space, meaning that Raleigh’s apartment market has and will continue to grow to meet rising demand.
In order to keep up with the slew of new complexes, existing apartment buildings must continually work to improve their facilities, as evidenced by the $572,000 The Oaks apartments off Louisburg Road recently spent on wall repairs, following water meter and line installations. EKC Rehab solutions will be handling the project.
Google Maps
Apparently, the A-Team are living out their retirement in the Oaks Apartments.
Built in 1985, the apartments were acquired in 2012 for $3.5 million by an LLC that traces back to a Florida construction company. Three floor plans are offered, which range from a 923 square foot two-bedroom, two-bathroom unit to a 623 square foot 1-bedroom, 1-bathroom. So…the extra bathroom and bedroom are less than 300 square feet combined? Weird.
Regardless, the apartments are nice and close to the MiniCity Shopping Center, which boasts not only a Food Lion, but a Mami Nora’s, a Little Caesars, a Barbecue Lodge AND a Boston Market. Some people just have all the luck. We should also mention there’s a Domino’s carry out location just around the corner. Just in case living there didn’t sound delicious enough.
Bing Maps
This hand drawn map illustrates the short route between the Oaks Apartments and the nearby MiniCity Shopping Center.
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Welcome back to Teardown Tuesday on the Development Beat! Fair warning: today’s teardowns may make you tear up, so be sure to have some tissues on hand.
Wake County
The Lake Boone Wendy\’s in its good old days of 2002.
The Wendy’s at the Lake Boone shopping center in west Raleigh is not exactly an institution – it was built in 2001. But for those 12 years it did exist (it closed in 2013), the restaurant offered its customers that unique combination of fresh-cut fries, delicious hamburgers and ice-cold Frosty’s that can only be found at around 20 locations throughout the city.
On February 25, 2015, a $49,000 permit was issued to Venture Construction for the demolition of the former home of Dave’s Hot n’ Juicy.
All hope is not lost, however, as another champion of the fast-food world will soon be taking its place: Chick-fil-A will be opening at the shopping center at some point in the future, likely late this year.
Wake County
The Crazy Fire Mongolian Grill in 2011
The second restaurant getting torn down is the Crazy Fire Mongolian Grill on Old Wake Forest Road right off of Capital Boulevard near Triangle Town Center. Callahan Construction will be doing the job for $30,000.
Although that area is hardly lacking for restaurants, Crazy Fire (this reporter has only been to the Cary location) offers a hibachi-style buffet option to its patrons, making it stand out.
Fun fact: before it was a Crazy Fire Mongolian Grill, this property was home to a DQ Grill & Chill.
Yelp
Barry G.
Yelp reviews for the Wake Forest Road location were none too kind, averaging two and a half stars out of five, although since the Cary location has an average of three stars, it’s clear those Yelpers don’t appreciate the place as much as they should. Hope you’re happy now, Barry G. from Wake Forest. No wonder you have zero friends.
Note – there’s been some talk recently of the Carolina Coach building scheduled for demolition. It received permits in early January, and we did report on it in this space (honest!), but that week’s posts seem to have been lost to the ether, or eaten by this reporter’s cats. One or the other. Either way, here’s a draft version of what we said about Carolina Coach back on January 13:
Built in 1939, the former Carolina Coach building was meant to serve as a replacement for the company’s garage/repair shop/headquarters at 510 East Davie Street, itself built in 1926. That property, known today as Stone’s Warehouse, is scheduled for redevelopment.
James Borden / Raleigh Public Record
The former home of Carolina Coach on Blount Street
According to a report compiled by the North Carolina Historic Preservation Office, Carolina Coach was incorporated in Raleigh in 1925. The original facility could accommodate “30 large coaches and 50 men.” No girls allowed!
Carolina Coach, according to the HPO, was “North Carolina’s first intercity carrier to be successful on a large scale.” In 1940, the company was acquired by Carolina Trailways, which was purchased by Greyound Bus Lines in 2008. It was at this time that the Blount Street location was shuttered and incorporated into Greyhound’s West Jones Street station, which, incidentally, was recently relocated to a space on Capital Boulevard.
Permits for demolishing the Blount Street space were issued January 8 to DH Griffin Wrecking Company.
Monday, March 2, 2015
After a couple of slow weeks – thanks in part to those surprise, late-February snow showers – we finally get to start off a week of Development Beat with our favorite kind of project: new multifamily residential.
Although we’ve reported on the 616 Oberlin development a number of times, the project has apparently been rebranded. A press release issued by the developer, Wood Partners, is now calling it “Six Sixteen.” Yeesh.
City of Raleigh
An early rendering of the development now known as Six Sixteen.
Six Sixteen (seriously, what were they thinking?) is described by Wood Partners as a “$40 million, 207-unit rental community” located near Cameron Village. Permits were issued for three new buildings along with a parking garage.
The apartment complex formerly known as 616 Oberlin has been in the works since 2012, and has encountered its fair share of opposition along the way. Neighbors were concerned that the development will create even more traffic problems in the area.
James Borden / Raleigh Public Record
616 Oberlin was once home to this one-story office building, which was demolished last year
Although the developers said they will try to mitigate the project’s impact by allowing only right turns in and out of the development, it remains to be seen what effect this will have.
Although the name is pretty terrible, this reporter has to admit he was somewhat drawn in by the description in that press release mentioned earlier – this place will have everything from billiards and bocce ball to a rooftop club and a poker room.
The community, designed by JDavis Architects, will include a four- and five-story building with 183,724 rentable square feet and 389 parking spaces on a 2.41-acre lot. Six Sixteen will center around a resort-style courtyard with a pool, bocce ball courts, barbecue area and outdoor TV-viewing lounge. Six Sixteen will be loaded with resident amenities, including an indoor TV lounge, a billiards lounge, a poker and wine-tasting room, a store-front fitness center with a virtual training room, a bike repair and maintenance room, a dog-grooming room, garage parking and indoor storage units. To top off the amenity list, Six Sixteen will offer a rooftop clubroom and patio overlooking the downtown Raleigh skyline.
Nice! Tomorrow: Teardown Tuesday bids a fond farewell to two amazing restaurants!
