Development Beat: Permit Party

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Brought to you by Rufty-Peedin Design Builders

Friday, December 9, 2016

Permit Party is a newish feature that combines our former “New Building Report” and “Renovation Roundup” columns into one. 

It’s like Déjà Vu all over again.

Public Storage on Capital Boulevard

Public Storage on Capital Boulevard

In our last edition of “Development Beat: Permit Party,” published in mid-November, the priciest commercial construction project we looked at was a new, $6.675 million new five story, 119,200 square-foot addition to the Public Storage facility at 1400 Capital Boulevard.

In the three week period since that column ran, the largest commercial renovation permit issued in Raleigh was for … $6.8 million in renovations at that same Public Storage Facility. McCrory Construction is handling both projects.

As it happens, the biggest new building projects permitted between November 14 and December 2 was also related to a project we’ve written about several times in the past: The Dillon in downtown Raleigh’s Warehouse District.

On November 17, Clancy and Theys Construction received a set of permits totaling $24,402,452 for phases four, five six and seven of this enormous mixed-use project that will take up a total of two and a half city blocks and cost developer Kane Realty somewhere in the neighborhood of $150 million.

The Dillon is probably one of, if not the most transformative downtown project we’ve had the pleasure of tracking in our time here at the Development Beat, and we cannot wait to see how it turns out, although it’s not scheduled for completion until sometime in 2018.

A rendering of The Dillon

A rendering of The Dillon

You can read all about the project on Kane’s website here, but of the many enticing fast facts listed, this is by far our favorite:

  • One-of-a-kind sky lobby featuring common area, private conferencing, collaborative work areas and signature restaurant space

We have no idea what a “sky lobby” is, but it sounds like the kind of place Lando Calrissian would have hung around in during his time in Cloud City.

Sweet.

In much less exciting news, the next largest new building project was for yet another storage facility, this one at 1938 Wake Forest Road. The three-story, 82,492 square-foot facility will be built out by Robert High Development at a listed cost of $3.63 million.

(Editor’s note: a previous version of this post erroneously identified the cost of this project as $36.3 million: a bit high for a three-story storage unit!)

Fortunately, two exciting downtown restaurant projects also received permits over the last three weeks: The Morgan Street Food Hall, from Hibernian and Raleigh Beer Garden owner Niall Hanley, and Pizza La Stella, from the owner of the former Bolt Bistro on Fayetteville Street.

The Morgan Street Food Hall — a very interesting, 24,000 square-foot upscale food court at 411 W. Morgan Street that we hope will end up being Raleigh’s version of the incredible Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia — received two permits totaling $714,993 on November 15. A.B. Goodrich will be handling the construction.

A rendering of the Morgan Street Food Hall

A rendering of the Morgan Street Food Hall

Pizza La Stella, whose owner boasted to the Raleigh Agenda back in September that “We will have the best pizza you’ve ever had. There is no question,” received $55,000 in permits on November 21. The renovations at 219 Fayetteville Street will be handled by McKenna Construction. The joint will feature “Neapolitan pizza cooked in wood-fired ovens.” While we’d be willing to bet good money it will be far from the best pizza this reporter has ever tasted, we’ll definitely be checking it out.

Most of the other permits issued over the past three weeks didn’t really catch our eye, and there’s too many to list here — a renovation at a mattress store, a range of office fit-ups, shingle & roof replacements at local apartment complexes — but before we go, we did want to point out one project that will surely brighten the days of many Raleigh children: an “aquatic interactive splash pad” at the Primrose School at Brier Creek.

The 523 square-foot water feature for this “private, premier preschool” will be built out at a cost of $49,000 by D.W. Ward Construction Company.