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Urban development in Cary?

JunktionFET

By JunktionFET
in The NC Triangle

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Jones_ City

Jones_

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I think its time for Cary to pick a spot and start going urban with a full street grid of some sort, multi-use buildings and footprints pulled up to to sidewalks......I know there is a plan for downtown to have mid-rise throughout at somepoint, but hey, how about going ahead and trying to lure in a developer to say the Maynard, Chatham intersection and plop a ten story office building on two of the corners. There is already that new wierd looking thing on Chatham pulled up to the road with out door dining. Plus this corner kind of could start connecting Cary Towne Center to Downtown in a roundabout way instead of say plowing through Walnut and its older neighborhoods. Just rambling, and trying have some vision for smallville over there.....

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rooster8 Hamlet

rooster8

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I don't mean to sound so harsh in my comments, but Cary seems to have little character beyond the immediate vicinity of downtown. If you look up suburbia in an encyclopedia, it should say: See Cary, NC.

Having said that, I think it is a nice place with fairly progressive ideas concerning recreation with the numerous greenways, parks, etc., and they have pretty good zoning restrictions. There is definitely sprawl, but it is pretty sprawl. :)

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raleightransplant Whistle-Stop

raleightransplant

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I think its time for Cary to pick a spot and start going urban with a full street grid of some sort, multi-use buildings and footprints pulled up to to sidewalks......I know there is a plan for downtown to have mid-rise throughout at somepoint, but hey, how about going ahead and trying to lure in a developer to say the Maynard, Chatham intersection and plop a ten story office building on two of the corners. There is already that new wierd looking thing on Chatham pulled up to the road with out door dining. Plus this corner kind of could start connecting Cary Towne Center to Downtown in a roundabout way instead of say plowing through Walnut and its older neighborhoods. Just rambling, and trying have some vision for smallville over there.....

I would like to see this as well. Some people don't notice or pay attention due to it's suburban reputation and sprawl, but Cary is very ethnically diverse. There is a full-blown "Little India" sprouting up at Chatham and Maynard. Any city in the Triangle would love to have an area like that.

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DanRNC Burg

DanRNC

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I honestly have no problem with Cary other than it being bland but a lot of people like that-heck we have major cities in this state that have less character. I like the Regency Park venue although they could probably add some more diverse acts to the schedule.

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thewhister Whistle-Stop

thewhister

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You can actually see the evolution from theater to gym to gym. Too bad some of the current second story spaces couldn't be retrofitted for residential purposes. As far as suburban shopping centers go, it's a nice place. I think it's problem is that it is too sprawling and people aren't/weren't willing to walk all around it. Today's society likes to park right in front of the door and it is hard to do that here.

Interesting statement. Guess our development pattern has made us lazying in that it is just too much effort to walk - a sad statement yet very true. Hopefully with the popularity of North Hills this will be a good redevelopment. Seems like the other issue is that there is no visibility from Tryon and Kidare Farm road. The site is landscaping beautiful but unless you know that it was there, you would not be able to find this place.

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  • 2 months later...
ChiefJoJo Town

ChiefJoJo

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N&O article on Waverly Place redevelopment:

Durham developer Zapolski & Rudd wants to spend $150 million to transform the 19-year-old center into a mixed-use development similar to Raleigh's North Hills... Highlights include:

* More retail space, from 205,570 square feet to 237,770.

* That includes a new Whole Foods store, which will be almost twice the size of the existing one and in a stand-alone building at the corner of the site.

* Demolishing about half of the existing buildings and renovating the rest.

* 165,225 square feet of office space.

* A 24,170-square-foot entertainment venue, such as a movie theater or music hall.

* More than 200 homes, including apartments and condos.

* A 150-room hotel.

* A 600-car underground parking ramp where the lower level of the center is today.

DId anyone catch the commercial in the early part of the Super Bowl doen by the guy from Cary? It was shot in this shopping center. I had heard a little about it, before-- it was actually funny... the guy is driving along with his doritos, checks out this chick who he's trying to impress and crashes into a car ahead... :lol:

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DwnTwnRaleighGuy Hamlet

DwnTwnRaleighGuy

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I don't get down to Cary too often, but I like this trend. Up in North Raleigh, I would love to see similar renovations (ehhem Pleasant Valley Area off Glenwood).

Hopefully this will turn out as promising as it sounds.

It does sound promising!

And I totally agree about renovating the Pleasant Valley Promenade on Glenwood. Also redo the old Wal-mart site next to it! :D

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ChiefJoJo Town

ChiefJoJo

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Here's an article from today's N&O about urban growth in Cary, including the redo of Waverly Place.

Developers say that Cary has begun to bump against its limits. It is running out of land to annex.

"The next step is infill development," said Charles "Boots" Elam, a former Cary planning director who now leads the private planning firm Elam, Todd, d'Ambrosi. "Everything's grown up."

The initial response of more than a few Cary residents can be summed up this way: Yikes!

A backlash has begun among those who think their community is threatened. Neighbors have compiled briefing books and lined up at Town Council meetings to fight developments with urban mixes of apartments, offices and shops.

Their worry: Dense development will bring crime, traffic and other city problems they came to Cary to escape. :angry:

Some contend urban blight could even smack the prestigious Prestonwood Country Club. Crosland, a Charlotte-based developer, wants to build a complex of shops and hundreds of apartments next door. The buildings could be up to five stories tall.

If they go up, "the Preston golf club is in danger," said Ed Wu, who lives in a red-brick home that borders Crosland's property. He has told the Town Council he would much prefer that Crosland build million-dollar homes on the land.

"Preston is a nice area," said Wu, who moved from Albany, N.Y., seven years ago. "We should keep the prestige."

"We have to ask ourselves what has made Cary great," Roseland said. "And what's made Cary great aren't high-density apartments. What's made Cary great is single-family, quarter-acre, high-end homes."

How slanted is the N&O in this article? "Urban blight?" Nobody used that term and they seem to simply take it and run with it as gospel. DT Raleigh development is exciting, but urban redevelopment in cookie-cutter, sprawl-ridden Cary is going to bring "urban blight?" Utterly rediculous. Yet another reason not to go to Cary. Hey, maybe there will be more urban projects in Raleigh as a result. :lol:

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Jones_ City

Jones_

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Some of those quotes read like an Onion article...wow, I am floored. I think this N&O article is great fodder a good book about what ails the US mentality wise.....run from the problems of the world to Cayrey (pronounced as spelled), forget about working on social ills, let other communities rot while we stay safe and secure within the Cary Parkway perimeter....safely patrolled by our nazi police department

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ncwebguy Burg

ncwebguy

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I hope the Waverly Place redevlopment doesn't get killed by these "Not In Cary" fighters. Preston Corners would feel a *lot* more alive if there were apartments or offices above the shops, and if the buildings were close to Cary Parkway and High House, not behind a sea of asphalt. Residents could walk to their offices, restaurants, shops, etc. and it wouldn't look like a ghost town at 9:01 pm (11:01 pm on weekends).

The group of restaurants with the new Greenshields and the NC 54/NWCary Parkway intersections could be even more upscale if they were "North Hills" urban. The majority of Karyites will never know what that area *could* have been like, since they're too scared of the shadows cast by any building taller than three stories.

The mayor that put a stop on new permits (Lang?) could have led to more urban development, but voters couldn't get him out of office fast enough :(

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  • 1 month later...
DanRNC Burg

DanRNC

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I have to say that I have found myself going to Cary more and more lately for of all things, food. Neo-China has some of the best Dim Sum of any place I have ever been to. Grand Asia Market blows me away and my fiance keeps making me go to Trader Joe's with her. I need to try that bakery La Farm which I heard was awsome and want to try Heron's. I also want to try some of the Indian places which I heard were pretty good as well.

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sax184 Hamlet

sax184

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How slanted is the N&O in this article? "Urban blight?" Nobody used that term and they seem to simply take it and run with it as gospel. DT Raleigh development is exciting, but urban redevelopment in cookie-cutter, sprawl-ridden Cary is going to bring "urban blight?" Utterly rediculous. Yet another reason not to go to Cary. Hey, maybe there will be more urban projects in Raleigh as a result. :lol:

Great post! Talk about hitting the nail on the head. We need to start using the phrase "suburban blight."

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carynative Whistle-Stop

carynative

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It may be. It's not a true "streetscaping project." They're looking at adding roundabouts, realigning roads and buying ROW to build some additional roads, etc in the downtown area. It's fairly extensive work. On their online plans www.townofcary.org, they also mention constructing parking decks as part of the project. In any case, its quite the investment for the dt cary area.

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orulz City

orulz

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I do wonder exactly what the $33 million encompasses. This is a multi-phase project in which Cary will completely redo all of its downtown streets. This plan includes many the usual measures for streetscape improvements - sidewalk reconstruction, specal intersection treatments, three roundabouts (all of which make perfect sense, might I add). However, as carynative noted, there's more to it than just that. They plan on building a town square, extending a couple streets to build out the grid (S Harrison and N Walker), and even widening Chapel Hill Road to address a bottleneck. I can see how all this would cost $33 million.

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