The Raleigh City Council gave final approval this week for a site plan to build a six-story building at the corner of Clark Avenue and Oberlin Road in the Cameron Village shopping center.
The Residences at Cameron Village building will include 282 rental apartments and 16,000 square feet of retail space at the ground level.
The developer, Crescent Resources, hopes to begin work on the $45-million project in May.
Kathryn Blanchard, with Crescent, said they have active interest from capital markets and expect to finalize financing for the project in April. She said the hope is to have the first apartment homes complete in the third quarter of 2012.
Will Allen, president of the Cameron Village Neighborhood Association, said Crescent Resources worked in virtually every one of their requests and that ultimately the process was agreeable, civil and progressive.
“The process they took should be a model for developers to follow in the future”, he said.
Neighborhood association members involved in the site plan project said cooperation extended beyond Crescent Resources to the expertise of Bob Mosher, an active member of the Cameron Park Neighborhood Association and former Raleigh City Planner for 25 years. “He brought to our attention issues concerning the street scape that needed to be addressed”, said Donna Bailey, past president of the University Park Neighborhood Association.
“The public process for coordination of [the site plan] wasn’t happening, so it was important for the neighborhood associations to have a strong voice,” said Mosher. “Crescent Resources made a big effort to listen to us and extended themselves to find a compromise on almost everything.”
Though, Mosher admitted he found himself thinking that for a shopping center whose buildings were considered at the forefront of style and design in the 50’s and 60’s, there was a piece of history being lost. But, he said, he is confident the site plan will positively shape the future of Cameron Village.
Smedes York, president of York Properties, the company that owns Cameron Village, is also pleased. “The building is the perfect continuation of mix-use space for the area and Cameron Village,” he said.
