Crabtree Toys R Us Closing

[rooster8 15]

According to TBJ, Toys R Us at Crabtree is closing. I wonder if its closing will help with the redevelopment of the Convenience Center.

Raleigh's Toys R Us to close

[dmccall 1]

Yeah!!! I just saw this, too. To me, the lease with Toys R Us was the big obstacle in demolishing the center. Now if we can get Hudson Belk to move into Lord & Taylor's spot or a new site off of the mall's axis, we can have something that makes a lot of common sense in the malls eastern half!!!!

[pack-man 0]

This is great news for Crabtree Mall. Hopefully they will be able to do something even if Hudson Belk doesn't move. That would be a great area for some really cool outside development like Southpoint.

Hope it happens.

[Damien 0]

A Southpoint like outdoor area would be cool, but I think it would be great if they built a tallish mixed use with retail and condos to compliment the Westin.

[Tayfromcarolina 0]

We are not suprised. It was good while it lasted, but is time to go. Bring on the redevelopment.

[Transplant 0]

Could the building that houses Toys R Us, Barnes & Noble etc, and the other building around it (the banks, gas stations, etc) be torn down and replaced by a 8 'half' blocks' (like those bounding Fayetteville St in DT)? If those were developed with a good mix, it could complement all the other Development around there. Plus, it could lead (long term) to more dense development along I440 towards Six Forks. I think there is a lot of open space near the Holiday Inn.

Only problem I see is traffic in the area, but that has to be handled any way.

[DigitalSky 5]

So this makes two Toys-R-Us stores that are closing in North Carolina. Charlotte's store on Independence Boulevard, (which i think is the oldest Toys R Us store in the state, or one of the oldest at least) is closing their doors as well.

The difference is though, Independence is dying and becoming a boulevard of vacant big boxes, whereas the Crabtree area has always been in thrive mode.

Edit:

ok after reading news, 75 Toys R Us' are closing and 12 are being converted to Babies R Us.

http://charlotte.bizjournals.com/charlotte...tml?jst=b_ln_hl (about the Independence Blvd closing)

The Toys R Us chain will still have 600 stores though

[NCMike1981 6]

I'm suprised that the Crabtree Store is closing, seems like a good location. I'm also kind of suprised they'd keep the one in Durham open, and close the Raleigh one....I imagine the Cary one does decent business in the traffic nightmare that is Crossroads...

[DigitalSky 5]

Yeah, I would have expected them to close the Durham one too. But with Raleigh and Cary's proximity, maybe they thought that it would be better served to keep the Durham one open for Durhm/Chapel Hill area and the Cary one for the Wake County area

[StevenRocks 0]

Could the building that houses Toys R Us, Barnes & Noble etc, and the other building around it (the banks, gas stations, etc) be torn down and replaced by a 8 'half' blocks' (like those bounding Fayetteville St in DT)? If those were developed with a good mix, it could complement all the other Development around there. Plus, it could lead (long term) to more dense development along I440 towards Six Forks. I think there is a lot of open space near the Holiday Inn.

Only problem I see is traffic in the area, but that has to be handled any way.

It's a nice thought, but I don't think anybody wants to live at Crabtree Valley Mall, not even me. LOL

[romec 0]

8 half blocks in that area really isn't a bad idea, and seems to be a natural evolution of all the malls having an outdoor "main street". But as StevenRocks said, the residential portion would be a tough sell. I do think that if something were designed very carefully, it might actually work out.

There would probably need to be some sort of buffer between this area and Glenwood Avenue. Also I think with the amount of foot traffic, that apartments/condos probably shouldn't start until a third floor. The second floor would consist of some parking areas (primarily for residents), but primarily "service offices" Dentists, and other types of offices that are generally low noise, mostly during business hours. Throw in a grocery store and maybe a gym, in addition to the ground floor retail and you have an interesting little urban community. The major problem I see with this is that it would completely shutdown when the mall closes. Maybe a couple of the blocks closer to Glenwood could sport more night life? The other quasi problem is that the people that live there aren't likely to work in the service offices or the mall. Do we really want to dump more cars onto Glenwood Ave than we have to?

It'd be interesting to see if it were well executed, but we can't have Crabtree beating up on everything that North Hills does, now can we :-)

[dmccall 1]

It's a nice thought, but I don't think anybody wants to live at Crabtree Valley Mall, not even me. LOL

My mother would, especially if they had a Harris Teeter. She'd never leave the property.

[Transplant 0]

In my rough vision, the new development would be bounded by Glenwood, the Mall, Crabtree Creek, and Blue Ridge Rd. The 8 blocks would be a mixed use buildings, that complement the development on Kidd Hill Plaza area.

Obviously, no one wants more cars on Glenwood (I think DOT better fix that area ASAP). Long term, the Raleigh Transit folks could run busses from the Mall Terminal down to the TTA rail, or other busses. Hopefully eliminating some cars.

This type of area might make an excellent retirement community!

[DigitalSky 5]

This type of area might make an excellent retirement community!

That would be good for retirees who are also mall walkers!

[ncwebguy 0]

There already are *two* retirement communities right behind Crabtree Valley Mall -- the "castle" you can see on the hill behind Kidd's Hill plaza, and another one tucked in below the road at the Blue Ridge/Homewood Banks intersection. The area between these two places and Crabtree is very pedestrian/bike *unfriendly* to say the least, especially along Blue Ridge up to Glen Eden (used to bike from NC State to Crabtree this way 10 or so years ago). Most of the people in those facilities are in some level of assisted living, so they probalby aren't going to make the walk, but this may change as Baby Boomers start to retire.

There are a lot of apartments along Creedmoor/Edwards Mill but I hardly see anyone make the walk. I don't know if this is because of the "Valley" effect -- all downhill going there, all uphill going back -- or if people are just lazy.

I don't know how well offices would do down there either. Glen Lake seems to have been stillborn for years right behind Kidd Hill. Not sure if this is because of a lack of visibility from Glenwood, or if they want too much for rent.

There is a lot more parking at the Crossroads TRU, but getting to those spots any weekend or during the holiday season is questionable at best. And I don't even know if Ctran goes there with its new bus.

I could see them opening up near triangle town center, to be closer to wake forest/wakefield/540/east wake/etc, but I doubt that will happen with the current toy market driven mostly by wal-mart and target instead of the old specialty stores -- Toys R Us, FAO Schwartz, and K-B.

On Tuesday, I went in there and the entire store was 10% off, except video game hardware and a couple of other items. Some items were 20-30% off, such as collectibles, christmas leftovers (which were cheap but slim pickings) etc. I'm sure the discounts will go up as the selection goes down.

[NCMike1981 6]

I only went into Toys R Us a very small handful of times when I was a kid....I think my mom said they were too expensive (this was shortly before the Wal-Mart invasion so I think we were still shopping at K-Mart and Roses), so I never really bonded with the chain but I still feel a bit sad seeing them closing....

[bdp 0]

does anyone remember talk that crabtree was possibly going to build on the parking lot between belk and the barnes and noble/toys-r-us shopping center? I thought I heard they were considering an outdoor portion, to rival s.o.s. and t.t.c. I think that with toys r us closing, this is, more than ever, likely to happen. the area stretching from crabtree to northhills has been touted as the new 'Midtown' of Raleigh, and I at first thougt this was funny... but with Kidds Hill, Soleil Center, North Hills, etc... I can actually see what is taking shape and it is not really that outrageous to imagine.