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What Does Cary Need to Do To Reach the Next Level as a City..er, Town?


Brendan

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On 3/22/2019 at 12:55 PM, nicholas said:

Yes I realize that, but does it really need to be five stories tall?

Like I said above, it's for the park too. The park is meant to be a destination. Its just like a giant vacant lot now but will be 7 acres with a bunch of stuff when complete. Park Plan

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One thing Cary does have is lots of high paying jobs.  From a Triangle Business Journal subscriber article about Met Life's new building.  When they came to NC they promised 1200 jobs in Cary.

""MetLife has lived up to its jobs promises and then some. As the company has put more emphasis on its technology operation, the campus has continued to grow. Today, it has about 1,800 people working Cary – a full 300 more than it did at the groundbreaking ceremony for the third building in October of 2017.  The Cary office is one of two tech hubs – the other being in Ireland – for the firm (though O’Donnell says the company is constantly in talks about a possible third hub).Building 3, which opens to its first employees in a matter of weeks, houses two new-to-Cary segments for the company, including the much-talked-about incubator it’s running through a partnership with TechStars. Additionally, the firm is bringing in a call center. That center alone will soon have nearly 230 employees.""

https://www.bizjournals.com/triangle/news/2019/03/28/exclusive-a-sneak-peek-at-metlifes-building-3-in.html?ana=e_du_prem&s=article_du&ed=2019-03-28&u=oAaDx%2B74FoP4qOJ%2By4AU6dhJPpc&t=1553802474&j=87508021

 

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I assume it's Chatham Walk, at Urban Drive, podium building with condos. Plans have been filed for an apartment building across the street.

https://www.townofcary.org/projects-initiatives/maps/interactive-development-map

The small building that was on that site was moved a bit closer in on Chatham and will be incorporated into a small office building.

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New proposal for redevelopment of Cary Town Center and this one mixes a lot more residential in the mix.  From the Cary town rezoning app

""Proposal to rezone General Commercial Conditional Use (GC-CU) and Mixed Use District (MXD) to Mixed Use District (MXD) to allow up to 1,200,000 square feet of office use, 360,000 square feet of commercial use, a 300-room hotel and 1,800 multi-family and townhouse dwelling units""

By this company  that does mixed use projects mainly in much larger cities https://www.turnbridgeeq.com/portfolio/cary-nc-cary-towne-center/

application here https://carync.app.box.com/s/vbnxviji6n8l0q3we7ym5y6hncjo2sik

With the huge Cary Gateway project nearby Fenton this could be real new downtown for Cary. https://www.fentonnc.com/

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A few things going on in downtown Cary.

The mixed use developments to go with the park and library are starting to show up in town planning portals. One Walker (a 6-story, 153 unit apartment complex) and One Walnut (details still unclear) are the two phases.

In addition, an office/apartments/retail project at the SE corner of Harrison and Chatham recently cleared a hurdle when First Baptist Church agreed with a developer to proceed. The church's permission is needed because part of the development will go on the church's parking lot.




Lately, I have become attached to the idea of large scale development in the vicinity of Cary's town hall. By large-scale, I mean "gosh Cary is actually a city" large. 10-20 stories.

To that end, I think the town should consider taking some steps like issuing RFPs for redevelopment of parts of the N. Academy Street campus. Particularly the Community Center at the corner of Academy and Chapel Hill. This is a single story, 30 year old building - substantially depreciated; adequately maintained but never fully renovated - occupying a small part of its 3.5 acre lot, on a very prominent corner a block from the train station. Here is the process:


(1) Plan for a new community center. How about put it where the old library is? This has great synergy with the other civic uses nearby, including the park, library, arts center, and school.

(2) decide the terms of the RFP. What do we want to see there? 5 stories? 10? 15? 20? (Yes please?) Affordable housing? Market rate? Office? A PPP for some public spaces in the parking deck? Some other public amenities like a plaza? How much retail? YES to all of the above??! :)

(3) develop the new community center

(4) execute the RFP, redevelop the old community center, ba-da-bing. There is pl


If the Walker Street extension ever gets built, the town hall parking lot could be next. There is plenty of underutilized land, both privately and publicly owned (including lots of town land as well as some by GoTriangle) in that part of downtown. Page Walker building is historic but that's it, I think given the context of the low-slung town hall and its gardens it should be easy to work around while being respectful.

In contrast, I think stuff facing Chatham is capped at 5 or so stories, and that feels right to me.

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Fenton is a really a big deal.  SC developer Columbia Development got some big time national partners to help them complete this project.  Hines of Houston one of the biggest developers in the county and USAA for the money aspect.  This is going to a be a great project for the whole county. 

https://www.fentonnc.com/

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In the lower center of the Fenton pic is the worst part of the project - the big surface parking lot. But, it's for a large 125K SF Wegman's Market, which is a stellar retail anchor. :tw_thumbsup:

Then you see some largish 5 and 6 story parking garages and about half of those are wrapped by residential or as a pedestal for the largest tower.  Not too bad for handling so much parking.

The most height seems to come from the largest tower, shown with 10+ stories, maybe 15+ with the garage...

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No details on One Walnut, but here's the description of One Walker. Downtown Cary's first five-over-one!

5-Story timber frame Type III-A Residential (R-2) structure over Type I-A poured in place concrete podium containing A-3 and B uses. Building contains Leasing Office, Residential Amenities and 153 Dwelling Units. 
Total Construction Cost of the Project: $35,350,163.00

Edited by paytonc
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1 hour ago, paytonc said:

No details on One Walnut, but here's the description of One Walker. Downtown Cary's first five-over-one!

5-Story timber frame Type III-A Residential (R-2) structure over Type I-A poured in place concrete podium containing A-3 and B uses. Building contains Leasing Office, Residential Amenities and 153 Dwelling Units. 
Total Construction Cost of the Project: $35,350,163.00

I can sort of guess, but where exactly is this going? Up against the library parking deck maybe?

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2 hours ago, rolly said:

In the lower center of the Fenton pic is the worst part of the project - the big surface parking lot. But, it's for a large 125K SF Wegman's Market, which is a stellar retail anchor. :tw_thumbsup:

Then you see some largish 5 and 6 story parking garages and about half of those are wrapped by residential or as a pedestal for the largest tower.  Not too bad for handling so much parking.

The most height seems to come from the largest tower, shown with 10+ stories, maybe 15+ with the garage...

These whole stand alone, Disney Land developments always feel meh to me. 

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$190M expansion with 6-story building for Cary retirement community

Quote

In its review of Glenaire's proposal, Cary planning staff found much to like.
Increasingly in Cary, rezoning requests are for a mix of uses — housing, retail and offices, for example.
"The proposed rezoning facilitates redevelopment of a portion of the Mayfair Plaza shopping center, which was built 37 years ago and has been identified as an underperforming center in recent years," staff noted.

 

 

GA2.png

GA1.png

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Kildaire Farm from here south to Cary Parkway would not be a bad spot for more high density mixed use like this.

In all, the town council has started to embrace the city that Cary has become and it's refreshing to see.

Hopefully Ya Liu's election (she was the most anti-development of the District D candidates) won't change the balance on council too much.

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