Wednesday, November 25, 2015
It’s a good thing it’s a short week here on the Development Beat, because there really hasn’t been a whole lot happening that’s worth talking about.
There was one interesting permit issued last week, however: a $436,000 renovation at 500 West Peace Street, the former longtime home of Lighting Inc. Although it was announced back in June that the business’s awesomely-named owner Wink Montague would be relocating his shop to North Raleigh, it was not until August that the building’s owners, the Bashford family, made the sale official.
Wake County
500 West Peace Street
County records indicate that West Street Commercial Owners purchased the property on August 25, 2015 for $1.4 million. WSCO is an LLC that traces back to the Lundy Group, a Raleigh real estate development firm.
The permits list the work as being for Spectraforce, which currently has an office near Lake Johnson at the Capital Center Park. Spectraforce is an IT outsourcing company, so why they would need $436,000 worth of work done for an onshore office is beyond me. At least it’s creating local jobs for Riley-Lewis Construction, August Construction Solutions, the firm handling the job.
Update: Although Riley-Lewis was the general contractor listed on the permits for the work at 500 Peace, a representative from August Construction Solutions reached out to let us know that paperwork is in place to put the project in their name instead. We asked if this is something that happens often, and we’ll let you know when we hear back.
Update: Apparently it’s not uncommon for an owner on a project to get one of the contractors bidding on the job to put their name on the permits as a way of speeding along the process. The name of the contractor can then be changed at a later date.
There really wasn’t much else that happened last week, renovation-permit wise. It does appear that the retail space behind the Shell gas station on Wake Forest Road right off Capital will be getting a new tenant, however.
Once home to a thrift store, the space was later replaced by Premier Fabrics. On November 17, $25,000 in permits were issued to Emergency Reconstruction for repairs to the building; the tenant was listed as Oakwood Antique & Collectible Mall, which currently has an address on Louisburg Road.
One last piece of good news before we wrap things up here: the El Pollo Rico restaurant at Tarrymore Square on Capital Boulevard right before the split with Louisburg Road will apparently be expanding its space an additional few thousand square feet. Although Tarrymore Square may not look like much, both this place and Pho Far East are great, and affordable, restaurants.
James Borden
Tarrymoore Square
In lieu of Teardown Tuesday (there were no recent demolition permits filed) or Terrific Tuesday, we’re going to do sort of a hybrid. Unfortunately we won’t be able to call it Thankful Tuesday, which would be wholly appropriate given this week’s upcoming holiday.
Many readers, perhaps, would find Tragic Tuesday an appropriate moniker for the subject of today’s piece, given that the plan is to look back on all the affordable apartment complexes torn down in the last year.
As we mentioned last week, there were a total of 11 apartment complexes torn down between the beginning of November 2014 and the end of November 2015. Between September 2014 and September 2013, there were a total of eight.
However, six of those eight were part of an overall project the city is working on, and the buildings themselves were in serious states of disrepair. Of the 11 torn down in the past year, five were city-owned properties and part of the same project.
Between February 2013 and February 2012, there were a total of five apartment demolitions. None of them were city-owned.
So of the ones torn down from November 2014-onward, let’s look into how many would have been considered affordable. We’ll cut the five city-owned properties out right away. So of the six, how many were affordable?
Let’s go down the list.
James Borden / Raleigh Public Record
The Palms Apartments, May, 2014
First up were the Palms Apartments. Built in 1966, the garden-style apartments housed between 12 and 24 units per building, which ranged in size from 11,000 to 24,000 square feet. Demolition permits issued January 27, 2015. Affordable? Yes.
Wake County
The former apartments at 200 East Six Forks
Next, we have the 200 East Six Forks Road apartments, which were built in the 1960s. Demolition permits were issued in April, and permits were issued earlier this month for the new 200 East Apartments set to be built in their place. New Apartments Affordable? No. Old Apartments? Yes.
James Borden / Raleigh Public Record
This apartment house was torn down earlier this year
The next one wasn’t a traditional apartment complex. First built in 1956, the building looked more like a single-family home, blending in with those around it. However, the 5,757 square-foot structure was actually a 6-unit apartment complex. Demolition permits were issued on May 1, 2015. Affordable? Yes.
A building at this apartment complex was torn down
In September, a demolition permit was issued for one of the buildings at the Courtney Place Apartments off Louisburg Road. We inadvertently included it in our total, and since the place is affordable, we’ll count it as a partial loss. Affordable? Yes.
James Borden / Raleigh Public Record
Did someone leave their dog behind?
The most notable apartment teardown of the past year was also a partial job, although on a much larger scale. For weeks, people had been writing to us, asking what was happening with the orange fences around those apartments on Lake Boone Trail near the hospital. Then in October we had our answer: the property was being redeveloped, and a portion of the existing apartments would be demolished.
Originally known as the Landmark Apartments, this garden-style complex of stick-built/brick exterior multifamily structures was first built in 1972 by a developer named Landmark of Raleigh. Demolition permits were issued October 6, 2015. Affordable? Yes.
Wake County
The Hayes Barton Apartments
Located near the intersection of Wade Avenue and Capital Boulevard, the apartments at 1315 Filmore Street were first built in 1964 and contained a total of eight residential units. Demolition permits were issued November 6, 2015. Affordable? Yes.
So that’s a total of five* affordable apartment complexes torn down over the past year. Not a great number. While there’s one designated-affordable complex going up, those rarely serve the same needs that older, less-expensive apartment buildings do.
*Plus the one building at that one place. And maybe the Lake Boone ones shouldn’t count as a full complex? It was an awful lot of buildings/units torn down though, and considering the Hayes Barton was only an 8-unit structure, we’ll count it.
Monday, November 23, 2015
Welcome back to another day of the Development Beat, where this week we’ll kick things off with a look at some of the renovation projects we didn’t get around to last week.
The biggest renovation permit issued in the first week of November was for a program at NC State known as the Nonwovens Institute. The name gives it away — this is an “accredited academic program for the interdisciplinary field of engineered fabrics.” And apparently the first like it in the world. Pretty cool.
A rendering of the new facility at the Nonwoven Institute
Although the work on the permits is described as “member — clubs country/tennis golf” we’re pretty sure it’s just interior completion work for a large research facility that the university is developing in conjunction with the Keystone Corporation. The $4.6 million job that received permits on November 9 will be handled by Danis Construction. Danis is also the general contractor for the project at large, which has a total price tag of about $28 million.
Next up is a pair of projects I’m pretty sorry I missed out on mentioning last week: a new Mexican restaurant and a new donut shop. It really doesn’t get much better than that. Maybe if there was a new ice cream shop thrown in there as well …
The former will be named the San Jose Mexican Restaurant and located in far North Raleigh off Capital Boulevard just past Falls of Neuse on Galleria Avenue. For further reference, Rex Healthcare of Wakefield appears to be right in front of the shopping center where this restaurant is getting developed.
Interestingly, there is already a San Jose Mexican Restaurant just down the road at the Triangle Town Center Mall, and there’s a Fiesta Mexicana just across Falls of Neuse. I guess you can never have too many Mexican joints. Bradley Construction will be handling the $269,000 project.
Rod O. / Yelp
The San Jose Mexican Restaurant at Triangle Town Center
Duck Donuts will be opening its first Raleigh location at 8323 Creedmoor Road in the Brennan Station shopping center. The east-coast confectionary chain has locations stretching from Newark, DE to Charlotte, NC.
There’s a location in Cary too, but why anyone would buy donuts in Cary from anyplace besides Baker’s Dozen is completely beyond my understanding. JCI Builders will be handling the $100,000 job at Brennan Station.
Duck Donuts
Franchisee owners Kelly and Bradon inside their Cary shop
Most of the other renovations weren’t all that interesting; the second largest one of that week, which is was for an alteration for offices of Morgan Stanley at 700 Spring Forest Road. The $300,200 job will be handled by Structured Services. See, nothing to really work with there.
Overall, the first few weeks of November have been pretty slow, permit-wise. Last week there weren’t even any new construction or demolition jobs, but thankfully the Development Beat will only be running through Wednesday of this week, so I can make do with a shortage of material.
