Thursday, January 21, 2016
Triangle Town Center is getting its Best Buy back, baby.
In 2003, the eponymous electronics retailer opened across Capital Boulevard from the Triangle Town Center Mall in the Triangle Plaza Shopping Center. In 2013, Best Buy and the owners of Triangle Plaza “couldn’t come to agreeable terms” on a lease renewal. Gander Mountain eventually filled the 45,000 square-foot space.
But the company wanted to retain a presence in the area, and reopened a mile south of the mall on Capital Boulevard in the Towne Square Shopping Center.
James Borden / Raleigh Public Record
Best Buy at Towne Square
Towne Square is home to a number of retailers, including a Michael’s craft store, a LifeWay Christian Store, a GameStop and “my” Papa John’s location, but the Best Buy always seemed a little out of place. Like it was too big, too shiny, too new. Too something. Well, probably not too big, since its present home is about 10,000 square feet smaller than the space up the road they vacated.
But that’s all about to change. You see, six months after Gander Mountain opened its doors and officially replaced Best Buy, the old Kmart across the street and in front of the mall got torn down.
The former Kmart near the Triangle Town Center Mall
In August of last year, permits were issued for a new, two-tenant 94,369 square-foot building on the site of the former Kmart. MLG Construction Consultants handled the job for $4 million.
On January 15, permits were issued for the fit-out of one of those tenant spaces: Best Buy will be relocating (again) to a brand-new, 45,130 square-foot space at 6200 Capital Boulevard.
MLG will be handling this job as well, for about $2.2 million. Best Buy is the first tenant to move into the building, whose owner, Highway One North Partnership/ZA Sneeden’s Sons, has been silent on what would be coming to the space.
Danielle Schumann, a communications specialist with Best Buy corporate, was nice enough to get back to me and confirm that the retailer would be relocating from Towne Square to the site of the old Kmart. The new store is expected to open sometime in the middle of 2016.
James Borden / Raleigh Public Record
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Work on the building that will house the new Best Buy & Hobby Lobby was underway in January
James Borden / Raleigh Public Record
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I'm sure HH Greg is thrilled about a Best Buy opening up next door
Schumann said the company had always kept an eye on the Capital Boulevard area, and agreed with my accidentally leading question that the new location was better suited to their interests, i.e., drawing in more customers.
One interesting thing to note is that site plans have been filed for a new Fairfield Inn & Suites that would sit very close to this new Best Buy, putting it within very easy walking distance of two hotels.
Well I think that’s enough Best Buy business for today. I just thought it was weird that it was relocating twice within two years. This renovation alone was $2.2 million; can you imagine all the other costs associated with relocating your business? Ooosh.
Of course, there were a few other renovation permits issued last week also worth taking a look at, so let’s dive into them.
First up is a place called CycleBar, which, despite its name, is not a new hipster watering hole in downtown Raleigh catering to cyclists. Thank God for small favors. Actually, the real concept of CycleBar may be worse than a hipster hangout; here’s how the company describes the business on its website:
CycleBar® Premium Indoor Cycling is an unparalleled, multisensory journey. Led by high-energy CycleStar® Instructors and fueled by pumping CycleBeats™ playlists in our state-of-the-art CycleTheatre®, CycleBar delivers far beyond a great workout.
Look, I run on a treadmill at Planet Fitness with headphones on, so I’m not one to argue about the purity of exercise (my Dad’s more qualified for this) but CycleBar just sounds kind of insane, almost a parody of itself. Like something you’d see in the background of a Paul Verhoeven movie.
At least it’s getting built out in Brier Creek, at 8741 Brier Creek Parkway to be exact, so I’ll never have to drive past it. The renovation of the 2,500 square foot space will be done for $250,000.
That may be the first time I’ve ever seen a permit work out like that (exactly $100/square foot), so CycleBar at least deserves credit for that. Actually, the credit probably belongs to our old friends over at Diamond Contracting, who are handling the job. Kudos fellas.
A rendering of the Bank of America Building
Next up we’ve got permits for The Capital Grille, a new upscale steak house that will operate on the ground floor of the Bank of America Tower in the Park District at North Hills. Here’s Kane Realty’s press release from December on the restaurant. This is their mouthwatering description of The Capital Grille:
With its uniquely designed architecture, The Capital Grille is an elegant steakhouse known for their dry-aged steaks, seafood, freshest ingredients, and award-winning wines. Each location has an onsite butcher for the 18 to 24-day dry-aging process.
Wow. I’d be so excited about this place if I was rich. Oh well. This will be Capital Grille’s second North Carolina location. The first was built in Charlotte.
Buffaloe Construction will be handling the nearly $3 million interior completion of the 9,948 square foot space.
And finally last week, the Wal-Mart at 10050 Glenwood Avenue in Brier Creek will be receiving a $100,000 interior renovation from Newco Construction Services. C & G Construction received permits last April for an exterior/interior renovation of the store, so this must be the second phase of the project. This Wal-Mart is also the subject of one of our highest-trafficked articles of all time: Union Targets Wal-Mart; “Flash Mob” at Brier Creek Store. We’re mostly sure that this renovation has nothing to do with a flash mob from more than two years ago, but who knows.
Editor’s note: in the initial version of this post, we incorrectly conflated the Wal-Mart at 10050 Glenwood Avenue in Brier Creek with the Wal-Mart at 6600 Glenwood Avenue. We apologize for this grave error.
