Thursday, February 18, 2016
I’ll get this out of the way now — the title of today’s post is a bit of hyperbole, so don’t get too excited. At least it won’t be as disappointing and depressing as seeing the World’s Smallest Lady at the State Fair always is, so there’s that.
First though: An update on a reader inquiry that came to us via Twitter earlier this week. Ru$$Man (@stankluv) noted that Telegraph Road Properties, which had purchased one of the homes we wrote about on Teardown Tuesday, had been snapping up a lot of land in the area. Who are they, he asked.
Telegraph Road Properties LLC currently owns 22 residential properties south and east of Moore Square in downtown Raleigh. Thanks to Google Fusion, we were even able to put together a cool little map indicating all the properties they own.
According to county records, most of them were purchased within the last year and a half or so, but some of the deeds date back to 2013. Russ wondered whether there was perhaps an ulterior motive to these purchases; while he didn’t go into detail, my first thought was, maybe this could be something along the lines of Walt Disney buying up all that Florida swampland under a variety of LLCs back in the 1960s. Tragically, this does not appear to be the case.
The address for Telegraph Road Properties LLC is the same address listed for Flynn Properties LLC, the company under which Flynn Dermatology owns its offices at 5603 Duraleigh Road. I should clarify, because this isn’t something I’ve come across before: it appears the building at 5603 Duraleigh Road is an Office Park Condominium Building, which means each unit is available for purchase or lease, per this flier from NAI Carolantic Realty.
The Condominium Office Building
Real estate’s not a bad investment, especially in Raleigh, and the fact that Dr. Flynn opted to purchase rather than lease is a good sign that he knows this. My guess: he’s poured some of the money he’s earned through his practice into a number of local real estate purchases.
However, the address *also* traces back to a Saebert Construction. What’s interesting about Saebert is that its corporate filings with the state of North Carolina give an address that traces back to Monarch Property, which was founded by local developer Jason Queen.
The plot thickens! Was I going to have to actually pick up the phone and try to dig up some answers?
Or, I could just Google Monarch Property + Telegraph Road Properties + Raleigh and…
Jackpot.
I know, you don’t need to add a “+” symbol anymore. Old habits Die Hard.
According to an article that ran last July in the News & Observer, Monarch Property had partnered with some local architects to develop a spate of modernist houses east of downtown Raleigh. Telegraph Road Properties was described as an “equity partner,” which means our initial assumption was pretty much spot on. First time for everything.
The N & O also noted that Telegraph had sold “17 homes since 2011 for an average price of $247,411.” Not bad!
So onto that small subdivision. Like some of Telegraph/Monarch’s properties, it will also be located in Southeast Raleigh, on the eastern side of the intersection of Bragg and South Person, to be exact.
According to site plans filed February 4 with the City of Raleigh, the 1117 South Person Subdivision will be made up of two, two-bedroom homes. The site plans noted that prior to construction, an existing property on the lot would have to be torn down.
Wake County
To make way for a new subdivision, this rooming house had to go
I pulled up the deed records for 1117 and something about the photo was very familiar; as it happens, we wrote about this very demolition project just over a week ago! It’s an old rooming house built in 1915.
The site plans indicate the 7,314 square-foot lot will be subdivided into two separate 3,657 lots, which makes sense since the plan is to build two separate homes there.
The plans were drawn up by Philip Post & Associates out of Chapel Hill and will not require Planning Commission or City Council approval as it’s a “Minor Subdivision of an existing lot” and can be approved administratively.
Site plans for the World’s Smallest Subdivision
Since the plans were filed the day before the demo took place, we imagine the owner, Spell Grounds LLC, isn’t going to waste any time getting those new houses built. Since we don’t normally report on new residential construction here, no guarantees there’s going to be an update on this one. But if you’re really curious, feel free to hit us up in the comments, on Twitter, etc. and we’ll look into it.
